Departmental homepageProfessor Arnold studied Geography at Christ's College, Cambridge, before working for what was then the Thames Water Authority. He then changed career, having decided a PhD would be more interesting, and followed this with several postdoctoral jobs, including at the University of British Columbia. He returned to the UK in 1996, having been appointed to a University lectureship in Glaciology at the Scott Polar Research Institute, and was elected as a Fellow of St John's in 1997.
Professor Arnold teaches a variety of courses for the Geographical Tripos across all three years, including for the Part IB and Part II Glaciology courses and aspects of the Part IA Physical Geography paper, and he teaches statistical, numerical and remote sensing methods. For postgraduates, he teaches on the MPhil in Polar Studies at the Scott Polar Research Institute.
Professor Arnold is a glaciologist with a broad-based interest across the discipline, from short-term, small-scale (tens of metres and hours to days) variability of glacier melt and ice flow through to the long-term, large scale (hundreds of km, thousands of years) impact of glacial meltwater on the ice dynamics and landforms in glaciated areas. His research has been based in the Alps, the Himalaya, Svalbard, Iceland, Greenland, Antarctica and on the planet Mars, and in the present day and during the Quaternary on Earth or Amazonian period on Mars. He uses novel combinations of field-based studies, numerical modelling and remote sensing to address key questions within glaciology.
Arnold, N.S., Butcher, F.E.G., Conway, S.J., Gallagher, C. and Balme, M.R., 2022. Surface topographic impact of subglacial water beneath the south polar ice cap of Mars. Nature Astronomy, vol. 6, issue 11, p.1256-1262.
Butcher, F.E.G., Arnold, N.S., Conway, S.J., Berman, D.C., Davis, J.M. and Balme, M.R., 2024. The internal structure of a debris-covered glacier on Mars revealed by gully incision. Icarus, vol. 419, p.115717.
Dell, R.L., Willis, I.C., Arnold, N.S., Banwell, A.F. and de Roda Husman, S., 2024. Substantial contribution of slush to meltwater area across Antarctic ice shelves. Nature Geoscience, vol. 17, issue 7, p.624-630.
Hogan, K.A., Arnold, N.S., Larter, R.D., Kirkham, J.D., Noormets, R., Cofaigh, C.Ó., Golledge, N.R. and Dowdeswell, J.A., 2022. Subglacial Water Flow Over an Antarctic Palaeo‐Ice Stream Bed. Journal of Geophysical Research Earth Surface, vol. 127, issue 2.
