Scholars@Duke
Sarah Cooley

Sarah Cooley

Assistant Professor of Planetary Health
Earth and Climate Sciences
sarah.cooley@duke.edu
Grainger Hall, Durham, NC 27302
Grainger Hall, Durham, NC 27302

Selected Publications

One-Hundred Fundamental, Open Questions to Integrate Methodological Approaches in Lake Ice Research

Journal Article Water Resources Research · May 1, 2025 The rate of technological innovation within aquatic sciences outpaces the collective ability of individual scientists within the field to make appropriate use of those technologies. The process of in situ lake sampling remains the primary choice to compreh ... Full text Cite

Glacial History Modifies Permafrost Controls on the Distribution of Lakes and Ponds

Journal Article Geophysical Research Letters · February 28, 2025 Accelerated Arctic warming is thawing permafrost and changing the distribution of lakes. Understanding the evolution of Arctic-Boreal lakes is critical to predicting climate feedbacks and monitoring ecosystems; however, previous research has found divergin ... Full text Cite

State shifts in the deep Critical Zone drive landscape evolution in volcanic terrains.

Journal Article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · January 2025 Volcanic provinces are among the most active but least well understood landscapes on Earth. Here, we show that the central Cascade arc, USA, exhibits systematic spatial covariation of topography and hydrology that are linked to aging volcanic bedrock, sugg ... Full text Cite

Retreat of the Greenland Ice Sheet leads to divergent patterns of reconfiguration at its freshwater and tidewater margins

Journal Article Journal of Glaciology · September 16, 2024 Greenland's marine- and land-terminating glaciers are retreating inland due to climate warming, reconfiguring the way the ice sheet interacts with its proglacial environment. Here we use three decades of satellite imagery to determine whether the ice-sheet ... Full text Cite

Community-scale changes to landfast ice along the coast of Alaska over 2000-2022

Journal Article Environmental Research Letters · February 1, 2024 Landfast sea ice that forms along the Arctic coastline is of great importance to coastal Alaskan communities. It provides a stable platform for transportation and traditional activities, protects the coastline from erosion, and serves as a critical habitat ... Full text Open Access Cite

Global loss of lake water storage.

Journal Article Science (New York, N.Y.) · May 2023 Drying trends are prevalent worldwide. ... Full text Cite

Using High-Resolution Satellite Imagery and Deep Learning to Track Dynamic Seasonality in Small Water Bodies

Journal Article Geophysical Research Letters · April 16, 2023 Small water bodies (i.e., ponds; <0.01 km2) play an important role in Earth System processes, including carbon cycling and emissions of methane. Detection and monitoring of ponds using satellite imagery has been extremely difficult and many water maps are ... Full text Cite

Paddy rice methane emissions across Monsoon Asia

Journal Article Remote Sensing of Environment · January 1, 2023 Although rice cultivation is one of the most important agricultural sources of methane (CH4) and contributes ∼8% of total global anthropogenic emissions, large discrepancies remain among estimates of global CH4 emissions from rice cultivation (ranging from ... Full text Cite

Direct measurement of optical properties of glacier ice using a photon-counting diffuse LiDAR

Journal Article Journal of Glaciology · December 2, 2022 The production of meltwater from glacier ice, which is exposed at the margins of land ice during the summer, is responsible for a large proportion of glacier mass loss. The rate of meltwater production from glacier ice is especially sensitive to its physic ... Full text Cite

Decreasing surface albedo signifies a growing importance of clouds for Greenland Ice Sheet meltwater production.

Journal Article Nature communications · July 2022 Clouds regulate the Greenland Ice Sheet's surface energy balance through the competing effects of shortwave radiation shading and longwave radiation trapping. However, the relative importance of these effects within Greenland's narrow ablation zone, where ... Full text Cite

Supraglacial streamflow and meteorological drivers from southwest Greenland

Journal Article Cryosphere · June 14, 2022 Greenland ice sheet surface runoff is drained through supraglacial stream networks. This evacuation influences surface mass balance as well as ice dynamics. However, in situ observations of meltwater discharge through these stream networks are rare. In thi ... Full text Cite

Physiographic Controls on Landfast Ice Variability from 20 Years of Maximum Extents across the Northwest Canadian Arctic

Journal Article Remote Sensing · May 1, 2022 Landfast ice is a defining feature among Arctic coasts, providing a critical transport route for communities and exerting control over the exposure of Arctic coasts to marine erosion processes. Despite its significance, there remains a paucity of data on t ... Full text Cite

A diffuse photon-counting LiDAR for optical characterization of glacier ice

Conference 2022 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, CLEO 2022 - Proceedings · January 1, 2022 We present a portable photon-counting LiDAR that uses a bistatic geometry to measure pulse broadening in the multiple-scattering regime. A diffusion model allows us to extract optical scattering and absorption coefficients of glacier ice. ... Cite

A diffuse photon-counting LiDAR for optical characterization of glacier ice

Conference Optics InfoBase Conference Papers · January 1, 2022 We present a portable photon-counting LiDAR that uses a bistatic geometry to measure pulse broadening in the multiple-scattering regime. A diffusion model allows us to extract optical scattering and absorption coefficients of glacier ice. ... Cite

Supraglacial River Forcing of Subglacial Water Storage and Diurnal Ice Sheet Motion

Journal Article Geophysical Research Letters · April 16, 2021 Surface melting impacts ice sheet sliding by supplying water to the bed, but subglacial processes driving ice accelerations are complex. We examine linkages between surface runoff, transient subglacial water storage, and short-term ice motion from 168 cons ... Full text Cite

Discharge Estimation From Dense Arrays of Pressure Transducers

Journal Article Water Resources Research · March 1, 2021 In situ river discharge estimation is a critical component of studying rivers. A dominant method for establishing discharge monitoring in situ is a temporary gauge, which uses a rating curve to relate stage to discharge. However, this approach is constrain ... Full text Cite

Human alteration of global surface water storage variability.

Journal Article Nature · March 2021 Knowing the extent of human influence on the global hydrological cycle is essential for the sustainability of freshwater resources on Earth1,2. However, a lack of water level observations for the world's ponds, lakes and reservoirs has limited t ... Full text Cite

Changes in sea ice travel conditions in Uummannaq Fjord, Greenland (1985–2019) assessed through remote sensing and transportation accessibility modeling

Journal Article Polar Geography · January 1, 2021 Shorefast sea ice provides an important platform for winter and spring travel between coastal Arctic communities unconnected by road networks. In the past two decades, local Arctic residents have reported thinning and earlier breakup of shorefast ice. Desp ... Full text Cite

The catastrophic thermokarst lake drainage events of 2018 in northwestern Alaska: Fast-forward into the future

Journal Article Cryosphere · December 1, 2020 Northwestern Alaska has been highly affected by changing climatic patterns with new temperature and precipitation maxima over the recent years. In particular, the Baldwin and northern Seward peninsulas are characterized by an abundance of thermokarst lakes ... Full text Cite

Advancing Field-Based GNSS Surveying for Validation of Remotely Sensed Water Surface Elevation Products

Journal Article Frontiers in Earth Science · November 23, 2020 To advance monitoring of surface water resources, new remote sensing technologies including the forthcoming Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite (expected launch 2022) and its experimental airborne prototype AirSWOT are being developed to re ... Full text Cite

Airborne observations of arctic-boreal water surface elevations from AirSWOT Ka-Band InSAR and LVIS LiDAR

Journal Article Environmental Research Letters · October 1, 2020 AirSWOT is an experimental airborne Ka-band radar interferometer developed by NASA-JPL as a validation instrument for the forthcoming NASA Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite mission. In 2017, AirSWOT was deployed as part of the NASA Arctic ... Full text Cite

Global Characterization of Inland Water Reservoirs Using ICESat-2 Altimetry and Climate Reanalysis

Journal Article Geophysical Research Letters · September 16, 2020 Accurate, transparent knowledge of global reservoir levels is a prerequisite for effective management of water resources. However, no complete database exists because gauge data are not globally available and the current generation of satellite radar altim ... Full text Cite

Coldest Canadian Arctic communities face greatest reductions in shorefast sea ice

Journal Article Nature Climate Change · June 1, 2020 Shorefast sea ice comprises only about 12% of global sea-ice cover, yet it has outsized importance for Arctic societies and ecosystems. Relatively little is known, however, about the dominant drivers of its breakup or how it will respond to climate warming ... Full text Cite

Evaluation of CloudSat's Cloud-Profiling Radar for Mapping Snowfall Rates Across the Greenland Ice Sheet

Journal Article Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres · February 27, 2020 The Greenland Ice Sheet is now the single largest cryospheric contributor to global sea-level rise yet uncertainty remains about its future contribution due to complex interactions between increasing snowfall and surface melt. Reducing uncertainty in futur ... Full text Cite

A high-resolution airborne color-infrared camera water mask for the NASA ABoVE campaign

Journal Article Remote Sensing · September 1, 2019 The airborne AirSWOT instrument suite, consisting of an interferometric Ka-band synthetic aperture radar and color-infrared (CIR) camera, was deployed to northern North America in July and August 2017 as part of the NASA Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experim ... Full text Cite

Greenland Ice Sheet surface melt amplified by snowline migration and bare ice exposure.

Journal Article Science advances · March 2019 Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss has recently increased because of enhanced surface melt and runoff. Since melt is critically modulated by surface albedo, understanding the processes and feedbacks that alter albedo is a prerequisite for accurately forecasting ... Full text Cite

Arctic-Boreal Lake Dynamics Revealed Using CubeSat Imagery

Journal Article Geophysical Research Letters · February 28, 2019 Fine-scale, subseasonal fluctuations in Arctic-Boreal surface water reflect regional water balance and modulate trace gas emissions to the atmosphere but have eluded detection using traditional satellite remote sensing. We use high-resolution (~3–5 m), hig ... Full text Cite

AirSWOT InSAR Mapping of Surface Water Elevations and Hydraulic Gradients Across the Yukon Flats Basin, Alaska

Journal Article Water Resources Research · February 1, 2019 AirSWOT, an experimental airborne Ka-band interferometric synthetic aperture radar, was developed for hydrologic research and validation of the forthcoming Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite mission (to be launched in 2021). AirSWOT and SW ... Full text Cite

Climate Elasticity of Low Flows in the Maritime Western U.S. Mountains

Journal Article Water Resources Research · August 1, 2018 Summer streamflow is an important water resource during the dry summers in the western United States, but the sensitivity of summer minimum streamflow (low flow) to antecedent winter precipitation as compared with summer evaporative demand has not been qua ... Full text Cite

Meltwater storage in low-density near-surface bare ice in the Greenland ice sheet ablation zone

Journal Article Cryosphere · March 21, 2018 We document the density and hydrologic properties of bare, ablating ice in a mid-elevation (1215 m a.s.l.) supraglacial internally drained catchment in the Kangerlussuaq sector of the western Greenland ice sheet. We find low-density (0.43-0.91 g cm-3, μ Co ... Full text Cite

Tracking dynamic northern surface water changes with high-frequency planet CubeSat imagery

Journal Article Remote Sensing · December 1, 2017 Recent deployments of CubeSat imagers by companies such as Planet may advance hydrological remote sensing by providing an unprecedented combination of high temporal and high spatial resolution imagery at the global scale. With approximately 170 CubeSats or ... Full text Cite

Observation Bias Correction Reveals More Rapidly Draining Lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet

Journal Article Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface · October 1, 2017 Rapid drainage of supraglacial lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet enables the establishment of surface-to-bed hydrologic connections and subsequent basal water delivery. Estimates of the number and spatial distribution of rapidly draining lakes vary widely, ... Full text Cite

Spatial and temporal patterns in Arctic river ice breakup revealed by automated ice detection from MODIS imagery

Journal Article Remote Sensing of Environment · March 15, 2016 The annual spring breakup of river ice has important consequences for northern ecosystems and significant economic implications for Arctic industry and transportation. River ice breakup research is restricted by the sparse distribution of hydrological stat ... Full text Cite