NEXT GENERATION PROJECTIONS OF SEA LEVEL CONTRIBUTION AND FRESHWATER EXPORT FROM THE GREENLAND ICE SHEET
2021-2026; Funding: uk NERC independent research fellowship
Ocean temperature and submarine melting of Greenland’s marine-terminating glaciers [figure source]
My research fellowship centres on the processes controlling the interaction between the ocean and the Greenland Ice Sheet. Given the dramatic changes at Greenland’s marine-terminating glaciers in recent decades, and projected future ocean warming, understanding such processes is vitally important if we are to accurately project the contribution of the ice sheet to sea level, and provide the scientific input that is required to make the best sea level adaptation and mitigation decisions.
Together with collaborators from the UK, USA, Denmark and Belgium, this project will use a range of observations and idealised models to better understanding ice-ocean processes and to better represent these processes in large-scale models.
FJORD DYNAMICS AND MODULATION OF ICE-OCEAN EXCHANGE (FJORDMIX)
2022-2025; funding: uk NERC standard grant
Box model development in progress… here showing idealised intermediary circulation simulated with two box model layers.
Together with researchers at the University of St Andrews and the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS), FjordMIX seeks to advance our understanding of Greenland fjord processes through the development of a novel fjord-modelling framework and its application on an ice-sheet wide scale. In particular, FjordMIX aims to (i) Provide the first systematic, Greenland-wide assessment of fjord dynamics and their role in modulating the exchange of heat and freshwater between the ice sheet and ocean; (ii) Evaluate how this has changed historically, and will continue to evolve through the 21st Century; (iii) Assess the impacts of this modulation on ice sheet mass loss and regional ocean circulation. The project funds a postdoctoral researcher at each of Edinburgh, St Andrews and SAMS.
GREENLAND ICE SHEET-OCEAN SCIENCE NETWORK (GRISO)
2020-2025; funding: us NSF accelnet
GRISO summer school in Nuuk, Greenland, 11-22 July 2022
Joint GRISO-ACDC summer school in Qeqertarsuaq, Greenland, 21 August-1 September, 2023
GRISO is an international, multidisciplinary network of scientists interested in advancing collective understanding of problems related to Greenland ice sheet change, and its interaction with the ocean, the atmosphere, the marine ecosystems and local communities. As part of this effort, I sit on the steering committee and have led two summer schools in Greenland involving a total of 30 postgraduate students and early postdocs. The first took place in summer 2022 in Nuuk with the topic “Impacts of glacier retreat on Greenland’s coastal margins”. The second was in collaboration with the Advanced Climate Dynamics Courses (University of Bergen) and took place in summer 2023 in Qeqertarsuaq with the topic “Past and Future Changes in Greenland Climate”.
greenland ice sheet evolution and stability (GREASE)
2021-2025; funding: RESEARCH COUNCIL OF NORWAY
Together with researchers from the Norwegian Research Centre (NORCE) in Bergen I am working on a project (GREASE) seeking to improve past and future simulations of the Greenland Ice Sheet.
The project has two primary objectives: (1) To determine upper bounds for rates of sea-level contribution from the Greenland ice sheet until 2050, 2100 and 2150 using novel model projections, initialised from historical simulations that reproduce observed mass changes; and (2) To constrain climate change trajectories that lead to a stabilisation of the Greenland ice sheet by 2500.
My role is to improve the representation of ice-ocean interactions - including submarine melt and calving - in the ice sheet simulations.
Projected 21st century Greenland Ice Sheet ensemble-mean thinning (left) and ensemble standard deviation (right) [figure source]
Global changes, local impacts: Study of glacial fjords, ecosystems and communities in Greenland
2022-2026; funding: US NSF navigating the new arctic
Greenland’s glacial fjord systems play host to oceanic, atmospheric, glacial, ecological and human influences [figure source]
Fieldwork in Sermilik Fjord, SE Greenland, August 2023
In collaboration with researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the University of Oregon, Dartmouth College, Oregon State University, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences and the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, this project seeks to understand the intersecting forces within Greenland’s glacial fjord systems while involving perspectives from Greenlandic researchers and communities. With field seasons in south-east Greenland (2023 & 2025) and north-west Greenland (2024 & 2026) we aim to understand how large-scale oceanic, atmospheric, ecological and societal variability interact with, and manifest at, the local/community scale.