Polar research, art and photography 

Research

I'm a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research (IMAU) at Utrecht University, where I study the future climate and mass balance of Antarctica and Greenland. My research is part of two EU-funded projects, PolarRES and OCEAN ICE. I work with regional climate models and study the interactions between the atmosphere and ice shelves, ice sheets and glaciers of Antarctica and Greenland.

​My interest in polar climates started during a study semester on Svalbard, where I catched the well-know 'polar bug'. Since then, I've focused my studies on understanding the interactions between the atmosphere and cryosphere. During my master's in meteorology I focused on Arctic climate, through a thesis and internship project related to Arctic sea ice and atmospheric moisture and energy transport. For my PhD in New Zeland I switched poles, diving into the meteorology and glacial mass balance in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica. As part of the Antarctic Science Platform I've been lucky enough to visit Antarctica twice, where I helped maintain weather stations and setting up new measurement tools. In my postdoc I use regional climate models to understand the contemporary and future melt and mass loss of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.

Publications

  • Gilbert, E.*, Torres-Alavez*, J. A., Hofsteenge*, M. G., van de Berg, W. J., Boberg, F., Christensen, O. B., van Dalum, C. T., Fettweis, X., Gumber, S., Hansen, N., Kittel, C., Lambin, C., Maure, D., Mottram, R., Olesen, M., Orr, A., Phillips, T., van Tiggelen, M., Verro, K., and Mooney, P. A.: The PolarRES dataset: a state-of-the-art regional climate model ensemble for understanding Antarctic climate, EGUsphere [preprint], doi: 10.5194/egusphere-2025-4214, 2025.
  • Hofsteenge, M. G., van de Berg, W. J., van Dalum, C., Verro, K., van Tiggelen, M., and van den Broeke, M.: On the non-linear response of Antarctic ice shelf surface melt to warming, EGUsphere [preprint], doi: 10.5194/egusphere-2025-4176, 2025.​​​
  • Hofsteenge, M. G., Cullen, N. J., Sodemann, H., & Katurji, M. (2025). Synoptic drivers and moisture sources of snowfall in coastal Victoria Land, Antarctica. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. doi: 10.1029/2024JD042021
  • Hofsteenge, M.G., Cullen, N.J., Conway, J.P., Reijmer, C.H., van den Broeke, M.R., Katurji, M (2023): Meteorological drivers of melt at two nearby glaciers in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica. Journal of Glaciology, 1-13. doi: 10.1017/jog.2023.98
  • Hofsteenge, M. G., Cullen, N. J., Reijmer, C. H., van den Broeke, M., Katurji, M., and Orwin, J. F. (2022): The surface energy balance during foehn events at Joyce Glacier, McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, The Cryosphere, 16, 5041–5059, doi: 10.5194/tc-16-5041-2022, 2022.
  • Hofsteenge, M.G., Graversen, R.G., Rydsaa, J.H. et al. (2022): The impact of atmospheric Rossby waves and cyclones on the Arctic sea ice variability. Climate Dynamics. doi: 10.1007/s00382-022-06145-z