showard (at) esr.org
Staff Scientist
Research focus: Polar oceanography and glaciology, focusing on ocean, sea ice, and ice shelf interactions
Susan is a Staff Scientist at Earth and Space Research where studies polar oceanography and glaciology, focusing on ocean, sea ice, and ice shelf interactions, as well as tides in the polar regions. She is currently using ICESat-2, along with satellite imagery, to improve understanding of interactions between the ocean, ice shelves, mobile pack ice, landfast sea ice and icebergs on Antarctica’s continental shelf. She has extensive experience in algorithm development, numerical modeling, and analysis of large data sets.
She has been involved in fieldwork in the Antarctic as part the Southern Ocean GLOBEC (2001) and ROSETTA-Ice (2017) projects.
From 2008 – 2012, she had a brief absence from ESR and oceanography when she moved to New Zealand and worked as a physical simulation developer in the Visual FX industry. She worked on Avatar, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Adventures of Tintin, and the Hobbit. Although a great experience, she happily returned to ESR and Seattle in 2012 to continue her work in the polar oceans.
Susan is also involved in a variety of educational outreach opportunities and enjoys sparking kids’ interest in the ocean. She has developed the popular Density and the Oceans STEM exhibit as well as a series of talks on atmospheric and ocean circulation patterns and climate for middle school students. She also co-taught the Lakeside summer research institute, which gave high school students the opportunity to participate in self-guided research in the geosciences (see https://www.esr.org/lakeside-summer-research-institute/ ). She continues to look for new ways to be involved in STEM outreach.
B.A. (1993) Rutgers University (Mathematics).
M.S. (1997) Oregon State University (Oceanography).
ICESat-2 Science Team: Observing and quantifying interactions between sea ice, ice shelves, icebergs and the ocean around Antarctica using ICESat‐2 altimetry
SWOT Science Team: Where sea ice, ocean, and ice shelf meet: ice-ocean co-evolution along the Antarctic Amundsen Sea coast from SWOT using open cloud infrastructure
For more information, see Susan Howard on Google Scholar
Sutterley, T. C., Howard, S. L., Padman, L., & Siegfried, M. R. (2025). pyTMD: Python-based tidal prediction software. Journal of Open Source Software, 10(116), 8566, https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.08566
Schulz, K., Nguyen, A. T., Pillar, H. R., Baumann, T. M., Muilwijk, M., Fer, I., Polyakov, I., Padman, L., Howard, S. L., & Spreen, G. (2025). Quantifying Tidal Impacts on Arctic Sea Ice: An Unexpected Mechanism for the Regional Delay of Summer Melting. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 55(11), 1951-1970. https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-24-0255.1
Greene, C. A., Erofeeva, S., Padman, L., Howard, S. L., Sutterley, T., Egbert, G. (2024). Tide Model Driver for MATLAB. Journal of Open Source Software, 9(95), 6018, https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.06018
Journal Version
Hart-Davis, M. G., Howard, S. L., Ray, R. D. et al. (2024). ArcTiCA: Arctic tidal constituents atlas. Sci Data, 11, 167 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-03012-w
Journal Version
Becker, M. K., Howard, S. L., Fricker, H. A., Padman, L., Mosbeux, C., & Siegfried, M. R. (2021). Buoyancy‐driven flexure at the front of Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica, observed with ICESat‐2 laser altimetry. Geophysical Research Letters, 48, e2020GL091207. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL091207
Journal Version
K. J. Tinto, L. Padman, C. S. Siddoway, S. R. Springer, H. A. Fricker, I. Das, F. Caratori Tontini, D. F. Porter, N. P. Frearson, S. L. Howard, M. R. Siegfried, C. Mosbeux, M. K. Becker, C. Bertinato, A. Boghosian, N. Brady, B. L. Burton, W. Chu, S. I. Cordero, T. Dhakal, L. Dong, C. D. Gustafson, S. Keeshin, C. Locke, A. Lockett, G. O’Brien, J. J. Spergel, S. E. Starke, M. Tankersley, M. G. Wearing, R. E. Bell (2019), Ross Ice Shelf response to climate driven by the tectonic imprint on seafloor bathymetry, Nature Geoscience, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0370-2
Journal Version
Mueller, R. D., T. Hattermann, S. L. Howard, and L. Padman (2018), Tidal influences on a future evolution of the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf cavity in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica, The Cryosphere, 12(2), https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-453-2018.
Journal Version
Paolo, F. S., L. Padman, H. A. Fricker, S. Adusumilli, S. Howard, M. R. Siegfried (2018), Response of Pacific-sector Antarctic ice shelves to the El Niño/Southern Oscillation, Nature Geoscience, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-017-0033-0
Journal Version
Marques, G. M., L. Padman, S. R. Springer, S. L. Howard, and T. M. Özgökmen (2014), Topographic vorticity waves forced by Antarctic dense shelf water outflows, Geophys. Res. Lett., 41, 1247-1254, https://doi.org/10.1002/2013GL059153.
Journal Version
Padman, L., S. L. Howard, A. Orsi, and R. Muench, 2009. Tides of the northwestern Ross Sea and their impact on dense outflows of Antarctic Bottom Water, Deep-Sea Res. II, 56, 818-834, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr2.2008.10.026
Journal Version
Padman, L., S. Howard, and R. Muench, 2006. Internal tide generation along the South Scotia Ridge. Deep-Sea Research II, 53, 157-171, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr2.2005.07.011.
Journal Version
Howard, S. L., J. Hyatt, and L. Padman, 2004. Mixing in the pycnocline over the western Antarctic Peninsula Shelf during Southern Ocean GLOBEC, Deep Sea Res. II, 51, 1965,
Journal Version
Klinck J. M., E. E. Hofmann, R.C. Beardsley, B. Salihoglu, and S. Howard, 2004. Water-mass properties and circulation on the west Antarctic Peninsula Continental Shelf in Austral Fall and Winter 2001, Deep Sea Res. II, 51, 1925, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr2.2004.08.001.
Journal Version
Padman, L., H. A. Fricker, R. Coleman, S. Howard, and S. Erofeeva, 2002: A new tidal model for the Antarctic ice shelves and seas, Ann. Glaciol., 34, 247-254. https://doi.org/10.3189/172756402781817752
Journal version
Muench, R. D., L. Padman, S. L. Howard, and E. Fahrbach, 2002. Upper ocean diapycnal mixing in the northwestern Weddell Sea, Deep Sea Res. II, 49, 4843-4861.
Howard, S. L., 1997. Tide-related mixing in the eastern Arctic Ocean, M.S. thesis, 120 pp., Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR.
Sutterley, T., Alley, K., Bishop-Taylor, R., Brunt, K., Howard, S., Padman, L., & Siegfried, M. (2025). pyTMD (2.2.9). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17676993
Mike Hart-Davis, Susan L. Howard, Richard Ray, Ole Andersen, Laurie Padman, Frank Nilsen, & Denise Dettmering. (2023). Arctic Tidal Constituent Atlas (ArcTiCA) : A database of tide elevation constituents for the Arctic region from 1800 through present day. Arctic Data Center. doi:10.18739/A2VT1GR64.
Howard, S. L., Little, C., Padman, L., & Sun, Q. (2022) “Gridded Values of Conservative Temperature and Absolute Salinity Around Antarctica averaged for the depth range 300 m to min([water depth, 1000]) m” U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP) Data Center. doi: https://doi.org/10.15784/601516.
Laurie Padman, Svetlana Erofeeva, and Susan L. Howard. 2022. Tide Model Driver (TMD) version 2.5, Toolbox for MATLAB (MATrix LABoratory). Arctic Data Center. doi:10.18739/A21Z41V08
Howard, S.L. & M. K. Becker (2021). Code for Ice-Front and Rampart-Moat Detection and Quantification in ICESat-2 Laser Altimetry (v1.0.0). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4697517
Howard, S. L., & L. Padman (2021). Gr1kmTM: Greenland 1 kilometer Tide Model, 2021. Arctic Data Center. doi:10.18739/A2251FM3S.
Howard, S. L., & L. Padman (2021). Arc2kmTM: Arctic 2 kilometer Tide Model, 2021. Arctic Data Center. doi:10.18739/A2PV6B79W.
Howard, S. L., L. Padman, M. King (2020). Antarctic Tide Gauge Database, version 1. U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP) Data Center. https://doi.org/10.15784/601358
Padman, L., S. Erofeeva, and S. Howard (2020). AODTM5: Arctic Ocean Dynamics-based Tide Model, on 5 kilometer grid, developed in 2004. Arctic Data Center. doi:10.18739/A2901ZG3N
Padman, L., S. Erofeeva, and S. Howard (2020). AOTIM5: Arctic Ocean Inverse Tide Model, on 5 kilometer grid, developed in 2004. Arctic Data Center. doi:10.18739/A2S17SS80
Springer, S., S. L. Howard, & L. Padman (2020) “Ross Sea ocean model simulation used to support ROSETTA-Ice ” U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP) Data Center. https://doi.org/10.15784/601255.
Howard, S. L., L. Padman, S. Erofeeva (2019). CATS2008: Circum-Antarctic Tidal Simulation version 2008. U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP) Data Center. https://doi.org/10.15784/601235
Howard, S. L. and L. Padman (2004), “Hourly ADCP data from ARSV Laurence M. Gould and RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer cruises to the Southern Ocean from 2001-2003 as part of the Southern Ocean GLOBEC project.”, 2019-02-22, DOI:10.1575/1912/bco-dmo.2343.1, https://hdl.handle.net/1912/23718
Antarctic Fieldwork
Antarctic Research Cruises