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FRINATEK-Fri prosj.st. mat.,naturv.,tek

Simulating Ice Cores and Englacial Tracers in the Greenland Ice Sheet

Alternative title: Simulering av iskjerner og englasiale lag i Grønlandsisen

Awarded: NOK 11.9 mill.

Medium to long-term sea level projections depend to a large degree on ice sheet modeling. In spite of great advances in this field, progress is slowed by two major challenges: 1) The lack of a model evaluation framework that includes the ice sheet interior, and 2) uncertainties related to the climate that caused past variations in ice volume. Decades of ice core research and groundbreaking new airborne radar data provide us with a very detailed view of the interior layering of the Greenland ice sheet, which holds the answers to both those problems. However, robust methods to bridge the gap between empirical data and numerical modeling do not yet exist. The SINERGIS project aims to overcome this disciplinary divide based on a new approach to ice sheet model design. Core development will occur in our working group at the University of Bergen, but we will collaborate with an international group of experts to disseminate our methodology and results. One outcome is a model evaluation suite of methods and reference simulations that can be used by many ice sheet models. The team in Bergen will closely work with the consortium that provides model evaluation and future sea level estimates to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Medium to long-term sea level projections depend to a large degree on ice sheet modeling. In spite of great advances in this field, progress is slowed by two major challenges: 1) The lack of a model evaluation framework that includes the ice sheet interior, and 2) uncertainties related to the climate that caused past variations in ice volume. Decades of ice core research and groundbreaking new airborne radar data provide us with a very detailed view of the interior layering of the Greenland ice sheet, which holds the answers to both those problems. However, robust methods to bridge the gap between empirical data and numerical modeling do not yet exist. The SINERGIS project aims to overcome this disciplinary divide based on a new approach to ice sheet model design. Core development will occur in my group, but we will collaborate with an international group of experts to dissemminate our methodology and results. One outcome is a model evaluation suite of methods and reference simulations that can be used by many ice sheet models. My team will closely work with the consortium that provides model evaluation and future sea level estimates to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as well as with the leading experts on Greenland radiostratigraphy.

Funding scheme:

FRINATEK-Fri prosj.st. mat.,naturv.,tek