📋 Tender Overview
Novel Subglacial Ocean Models To Accurately Predict Ice-Shelf Ablation Rates At High Resolution And Low Computational Cost
Funded Under
European Research Council (Erc)
Total Cost
€ 1 497 861,00
Eu Contribution
€ 1 497 861,00
Coordinated By
Universite Lyon 1 Claude Bernard
France
Objective
Ice shelves fringing the Antarctic coastline limit sea-level rise by slowing down the flow of grounded ice into the sea. They are thinning because of warming and intensifying ocean currents. Building upon my expertise in multi-scale flow dynamics and subglacial oceanography, I will resolve the two main bottlenecks that impair our ability to assess and project the state of Antarctic ice shelves. These are: (i) a poor understanding of the relationship between ice-shelf ablation rates and ocean properties & (ii) the high computational cost of ocean simulations.
I will first build new models of the metre-thick ice-shelf—ocean boundary layer (ISOBL), using innovative laboratory experiments and simulations that will unravel its dynamics. The lack of accurate ISOBL models is responsible for leading-order errors in predicting ice loss rates and freshwater production. The new models will capture how turbulence controls heat fluxes over an unprecedented range of sub ice-shelf conditions, accurately predicting ice ablation rates from the grounding line to the shelf front.
