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Glaciology and Climate Change research projects

Members of the Glaciology and Climate Change research group are currently engaged in the following research projects.

The list below may also include a small number of archived projects. In due course, these will be listed separately.

Assessing the role of subglacial hydrology on the flow of West Antarctic ice streams: a numerical modelling approach
A summary of this project will be online shortly.
Changing Thermal Regime of Polythermal Glaciers
Over the past few decades, many Arctic glaciers have been shrinking in response to climate change and are predicted to shrink further over the next few decades. Many Arctic glaciers are polythermal, with warm ice (at 0 deg C) in their interior where ice is thick and is warmed to the pressure melt point, and cold ice (below 0 deg C) around their margins where ice is thin. Previous work on the polythermal glacier Midre Lovénbreen, close to the Arctic research base, Ny-Ålesund on Spitsbergen has shown that the thermal regime of this glacier, particularly the location of warm-based and cold-based ice, has important implications for the glacier’s hydrology and dynamics. We hypothesized that as glaciers shrink, their thermal regime will change, and that this will affect the way in which water moves through them and control their movement. Results show that while the glacier snout has retreated about 13m per year and surface mass balance has been -0.4m of water equivalent per year since 1990, the boundary between the warm- and cold-based ice has retreated by around 80m per year over the same period.
CryoSat-2
The Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge University is part of an international team of scientists coordinated by the European Space Agency, the Cryosat Calibration, Validation and Retrieval Team (CVRT). Since 2004 SPRI scientists have participated in field campaigns in Greenland and Svalbard, collecting data on the spatial variation of snow density and densification processes.
Evaluating the potential of high-resolution airborne remote sensing for glaciology
One of the fundamental requirements for the creation of accurate models of glacier mass-balance is the provision of accurate topographic data in the form of Digital Elevation Models (DEMs). Such data have typically been derived from either traditional topographic maps, or more recently, from spaceborne altimetry data. These data sources, however, typically have a low spatial resolution; where high resolution data are required, they are derived by interpolation of the low resolution data, and hence produce inherently 'smooth' DEMs. In recent years, however, the performance of airborne, high resolution altimeters has improved markedly. In this project we investigate the potential of a high resolution LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) system both as a tool for the creation of accurate, high resolution DEMs, but also to evaluate the potential of such data in other areas of glaciology such as measurement of glacier velocity through feature tracking.
Extreme Experiments: A comprehensive plan to validate Cryosat in the Arctic and Antarctic
SPRI scientists are working as part of a team of scientists to validate data from the European Space Agency Cryosat project. CryoSat is a radar altimetry mission that aims to collect information about variations in thickness of polar ice sheets and sea ice to support research into climate change.
Geometry and Mass Balance Changes of Langjökull, Iceland
Currently, about 11% (11 200km2) of Iceland is covered by ice; most contained within extensive plateau ice caps ranging in size from Hofsjökull i Loni (8km2) to Vatnajökull (8175km2). The maritime climate means these ice caps receive up to ~4 m w.e. a-1 of snowfall in their accumulation zones and lose up to ~10m w.e. a-1 of ice in their ablation areas. This, together with the fact they are temperate, means they are dynamically responsive to small climatically induced mass balance changes.
Glacial Sedimentary Processes in Iceland
We have recently completed a study employing macro- and micro-sedimentological techniques on sediments exposed on recently deglaciated fore-fields at nine surging and non-surging glaciers in Iceland.
High-resolution distributed modelling of the surface energy balance of valley glaciers
A summary of this project will be online shortly.
Hydrological controls on the formation of basal ice layers beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet
In the austral summer 2000-2001, a borehole camera system developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was used to image the ice compositions in West Antarctica. This resulted in the identification of a 15-m-thick layer of accreted basal ice in Kamb Ice Stream.
Identification of Subglacial Paleolakes in Arctic Canada: geophysical surveys in the Great Slave Lake
The aim of this project is to identify and examine paleo-subglacial lake environments that serve as analogues to subglacial lakes buried beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Our project focuses on Christie Bay in the NE arm of Canada’s Great Slave Lake, which is the deepest lake in North America (~640 m) and 6th deepest lake worldwide. The deep trough in Christie Bay is a fascinating geomorphological feature in the topographically subtle Canadian Shield. It is probably an erosional result of the advance and retreat of Quaternary ice sheets over a fault system that originates with the amalgamation of the North American continent 2 Ga BP.
INTEGRAL
The general goal of INTEGRAL is to promote an advanced observation technology based on the complementary use of satellite interferometry and altimetry for generating and upgrading models of the elevation and evolution of the largest European tidewater glaciers (TWGs), and to integrate estimations of glacier changes at the regional scale.
Investigating basal conditions and flow dynamics on Vestfonna Ice Cap, Svalbard
Arctic ice caps are an important component of global change, especially as Arctic temperatures are increasing at almost twice the global average. This project focuses on Vestfonna Ice Cap, located in northeast Svalbard. This Arctic ice cap is of particular interest because its northern ice margin terminates on land while the southern margin contains a series of tidewater outlet glaciers, comparable to those draining the Greenland Ice Sheet.
Modelling and observing subglacial processes beneath Antarctic ice streams
Ice sheets are drained by fast flowing glaciers that discharge large quantities of ice into polar oceans. Changes in the motion of fast flowing glaciers, such as ice streams and major outlet glaciers, can therefore affect the mass balance of ice sheets. Glaciological research has shown that the flow of ice streams is controlled by material properties of weak subglacial sediment. Many glaciers, particularly the fast flowing ones, overrides a thin layer of glacially eroded sediment called till. The soil mechanical behaviour of subglacial till is therefore a key glaciological issue.
Modelling Mass Balance of Svalbard Glaciers
The Arctic climate is currently warming at a faster rate than observed elsewhere on Earth and future projections suggest this trend will continue into the 21st century. With glaciers and ice caps covering ~36 600 km2, Svalbard is one of the largest glaciated areas in the Arctic. Future climate change will significantly alter the mass balance of glaciers and ice caps across the archipelago with important consequences for sea level. We are currently developing a numerical mass balance model, which will ultimately be used to calculate the spatial and temporal variations in mass balance of the archipelago’s ice masses.
Modelling the influence of glacier hydrology on the dynamics of large ice sheets
Glacier hydrology, that is the systems which carry water within and at the bed of ice sheets and glaciers, are one of the fundamental controls on the velocity of ice masses, and hence their possible responses to climate change. The flow rates of valley glaciers are known to be influenced by the changes in the amount of water in their hydrological systems which occur over the course of a year due to the changing seasons, and there is increasing evidence that the Greenland Ice Sheet in particular may experience annual velocity variations in response to increased summer melting. Geomorphological evidence from areas occupied by ice sheets during the last glacial period also suggests that the great Quaternary ice sheets carried substantial amounts of water at their beds, and that this basal water affected their flow rates. Fast glacier flow, which occurs in modern-day ice streams and some of the large outlet glaciers which drain both the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets seems in particular to depend on the presence of basal water at high pressure. This project aims to incorporate a physically-based numerical model of subglacial hydrology into a state-of-the-art thermomechanical ice sheet model.
Spaceborne measurements of Arctic glaciers and implications for sea-level change
SPICE was a 3-year research project whose main objective was to develop a scheme in which satellite data of varying nature can be combined to give detailed information on the mass budget of ice caps.
Supraglacial, Englacial and Subglacial Hydrology of Glaciers and Ice Sheets
This work is concerned with modelling the water movement through: i) supraglacial snowpacks (unsaturated / saturated; isothermal / non-isothermal) and across ice surfaces; ii) englacial pipes and channels; and iii) subglacial distributed and channelised drainage systems.
The Greenland Ice Sheet: How fast is it changing, and why?
The Greenland Ice Sheet (Fig. 1) covers 80% of the Greenland land surface area of 2.2 million km2. The volume of ice in the ice sheet is 2.9 million km3. The geographical position of the ice sheet ranges from 59° to 83° north and from 73° to 110° west. Each year, snow accumulation provides the equivalent of 680 cubic kilometers of ice and if the ice sheet was in a steady state it would lose the same amount by surface melting and iceberg discharge. The Greenland Ice Sheet is thought to have formed approximately 3 million years ago when glaciations in the northern hemisphere became extensive. The cause of Northern hemisphere glaciations is not fully established. It is possible that tectonic processes such as the uplift of Tibet and closure of the Panama Sea Way caused global cooling, but it has been suggested that a decline in atmospheric carbon dioxide could have triggered the most recent era of glaciation in Greenland.
Thermodynamics of basal freeze-on beneath glaciers and ice sheet
Quantitative models of basal freeze-on and its effects on basal ice and subglacial sediments are needed because of the important role that basal freeze- on plays in controlling spatial and temporal patterns of fast ice flow in polar ice sheets.
Understanding contemporary changes in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
The aim of this project is to develop a numerical ice-flow model for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and its ice streams. The model will feature accurate predictive ability for simulation of the 21st century when coupled to an Earth-system model. We will use the model to develop a better understanding of the contemporary changes in the West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS) observed over the last c. 20 years. The study will make use of a wide range of observations including satellite remote imaging, airborne surveys and ground-based field campaigns.