Newswise — Growing up, Frederick “Fritz” Nelson dreamed of traveling to exotic places. Over the years, the University of Delaware geography professor has ventured to Alaska, Canada, Russia, Mongolia, and places in between, to examine perennially frozen ground called permafrost and the implications of its thawing for society.
Along the way, Nelson helped to establish the Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring (CALM) network, which now consists of some 200 sites in 15 countries. The network is producing a long-term record of permafrost behavior to document how this frozen ground responds to snow cover and other climatic “drivers,” and to evaluate the performance of climate models.
In recognition of his contributions, the Association of American Geographers (AAG) presented Nelson with the Francois Emile Matthes Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cryospheric Science on April 14, at the AAG annual meeting in Seattle. The society, founded in 1904, has more than 12,000 members representing over 60 countries.
Nelson was cited as a leading figure in the field, who also has a deep interest in the history of science.
Excerpting from one of many letters nominating Nelson for the award, Bryan Mark, Ohio State University professor and chair of AAG’s Cryosphere Specialty Group, said, “He is clearly a world leader in cryospheric research. Many of his early studies of permafrost and periglacial geomorphology are now classics of the field. He continues to be very productive, and shifts his interests to meet the changing science of our times.”
Matthes, after whom the award is named, was a founder of AAG and an expert in topographic mapping, glaciers and climate change, who mapped Glacier National Park, the Grand Canyon, Yosemite Valley and Mt. Ranier National Park while working for the U.S. Geological Survey. He assembled an extensive collection of photographs of American glaciers.
This past September, Nelson was among a handful of U.S. delegates invited to attend the “Arctic: Territory of Dialogues” conference in Moscow, chaired by Vladmir Putin. In December, he served as a plenary speaker at the Symposium on Cryospheric Monitoring, sponsored by the World Glacier Monitoring Service and the University of Zurich.
Nelson recently also was instrumental in acquiring permissions to move the archives of the American Geographical Society from its long-term home in New York City to Milwaukee, where it has rejoined the AGS Library and photograph collections. The AGS Archives date back to 1851 and include the correspondence of many people prominent on the world stage, as well as a large number of priceless artifacts.
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