Fjord glaciers in a changing climate - Research stay at University of California Irvine

This proposal concerns a planned 6-month research stay for PhD candidate Henning Åkesson (University of Bergen) at University of California Irvine (http://uci.edu) and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (http://jpl.nasa.gov) at NASA during autumn 2016 and early 2017. Åkesson is part of the NFR-funded project (# 229788), Eurasian Ice Sheet and Climate Interactions (EISCLIM) aiming to understand the climate and ice sheet dynamics involved in building and melting away the Eurasian Ice Sheet during the last glacial cycle (115,000 - 10,000 years ago). Ice sheet margins in contact with the ocean, such as the Norwegian fjords, are particularly sensitive to changes in climate forcing. However, ice sheet models are still poorly integrated with observations, especially for past climates. A wealth of geological data is available from the EISCLIM project. While crucial to constrain models, these data still represent only snapshot information about ice sheet and climate evolution. Ice sheet models, on the other hand, can provide a continuous picture, and perhaps more importantly, give insight into the mechanisms at play. During the stay at UCI and NASA-JPL, Åkesson will use the state-of-the-art numerical ice sheet model ISSM (http://issm.jpl.nasa.gov/), which is jointly developed at UCI and JPL. He will join a team of leading international experts on ice sheet dynamics and benefit from the use of computational resources at UCI and NASA-JPL. Scientific findings from this research stay will deepen our understanding on how and why the Norwegian fjords became ice-free during the last deglaciation. Today's Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets share several features with the past Norwegian fjord glaciers and the Eurasian Ice Sheet. We therefore anticipate that information about the once glacier-filled fjords of Norway will give the scientific communities on ice sheet and climate dynamics important clues to how our polar ice sheets will respond to future climate change.