ORONO, Maine — Climate change researchers around the world are mourning a well-respected University of Maine scientis t who was killed in a snowmobile crash in Antarctica over the weekend.
Gordon Hamilton, 50, was conducting National Science Foundation-funded field research with the university’s Climate Change Institute on Saturday, Oct. 22, when the snowmobile he was operating struck a crevasse.
Since the news of Hamilton’s death began spreading, condolences have flooded in from the scientific community. As of Tuesday, UMaine and its climate institute received “many dozens” of messages from researchers and colleagues across the United States and around the globe, including the United Kingdom, Iceland, Scandinavia, Poland, Italy, Australia and Brazil, according to UMaine spokeswoman Margaret Nagle. Some knew Hamilton for decades. Others had only read his writing in scientific journals.
Leigh Stearns is a scientist and professor at the University of Kansas, where she has been a member of the faculty for seven years. She met Hamilton 16 years ago when she entered graduate school at UMaine. Stearns said during a phone interview Tuesday that Hamilton’s guidance was a key reason she found success in her field.
“We spent a total of nearly 24 months doing field work together over the years,” an emotional Stearns said. “I owe my career to his advice and his support. I think all of [his students] would say he was our best advocate.”
Hamilton was great at describing his research and the science of glaciers with anyone in a way they could understand — speaking with everyone from Maine politicians to fifth-grade students over the years.
“He didn’t dumb it down, but he made it tractable,” Stearns said.
Hamilton spent much of his recent career studying the interplay between glaciers and the ocean — for example, how the melting of glaciers contribute to rising ocean levels.
“I wish he were here to learn how many people loved and appreciated him,” Stearns said during an interview Tuesday. “People gravitated toward him and his work.”
Hamilton joined the Climate Change Institute in 2000 as an assistant research professor. Before coming to Maine, the Scotland native was at the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center at Ohio State University and the Norwegian Polar Institute in Oslo, Norway. He earned his doctorate from the University of Cambridge in 1992.
“Gordon just had this infectious laugh, and this great way of looking at things,” said Sridhar Anandakrishnan, a glaciologist and professor at Penn State. “He was not your standard dour Scotsman.”
Anandakrishnan first met Hamilton about 25 years ago during his time at the Byrd Center. Anandakrishnan was a newly minted graduate student visiting Ohio State for a seminar, and he crashed for the night at Hamilton’s apartment, sleeping on the floor with Hamilton’s cats, he said during an interview Tuesday.
The two remained friends, and even though they never worked directly on a project together, field researchers who spend any amount of time during a limited season in Greenland or Antarctica tend to “cross paths quite a bit,” sharing plane rides or meeting in ports, airstrips and other stopping points.
“You build a bond,” he said. “It’s hit this community really hard.”
Climate researchers, especially those who work in the field, are a tight-knit group. Even those who seldom meet face-to-face keep a close eye on the research colleagues are conducting in the field. Hamilton, for example, was the author of more than 60 articles on studies of ice dynamics using satellite and geophysical data.
Tas van Ommen, program leader at the Antarctica and Global System based in Tasmania, Australia, said he met Hamilton only a few times over the years at meetings and seminars, but his research left an impression.
“It makes an important contribution to these fields, leaving a significant legacy,” he wrote in an email. “He was a dynamic individual, passionate about his work and its importance to humanity. His tragic death doing this work in the harsh, unforgiving environment of Antarctica leaves a gap in the international community.”
The scientists said Hamilton’s work and influence won’t soon be forgotten.
“My great hope is that one of Gordon’s memorials will be a greater attention and understanding of climate change,” Anandakrishnan said.
Follow Nick McCrea on Twitter at @nmccrea213.
BDN writer Dawn Gagnon contributed to this report.