Modelling the response of the Greenland Ice Sheet with respect to changes in surface and basal parameters
Speaker: Dr. Jonathan McGovern
Affiliation: Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Geophysique de l’Environement, Grenoble, FRANCE
Time: 4:00 PM
Date: Wednesday January 23rd 2013
Location: Mathematics Seminar Room, Room AG 1.01, First Floor, Agriculture Building, UCD Belfield
Abstract:
According to the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, there is ever stronger evidence that global climate change is occurring. Current global sea-level rise is partly due to the thermal expansion of the oceans with a warmer climate, but also due to the melting of the components of the cryosphere. These components include, for example, ice sheets and glaciers.
Examining the modelled response of the Greenland Ice Sheet to changes in surface and basal parameters can give insight into how the ice sheet will behave in the future. This is important considering the ice sheet has a sea-level equivalent of 7 metres and the rate of mass loss from it is increasing.
The response of the modelled ice sheet to specific changes in forcing parameters is referred to as the model sensitivity. Adjoint models are tools that allow model sensitivities to be calculated quickly. This would be useful in glaciology for examining the future response of the Greenland Ice Sheet. This talk looks at the use of adjoint models in glaciology for obtaining ice sheet sensitivities, and examines the modelled response of the Greenland Ice Sheet to changes in surface and basal parameters.
Series: Applied and Computational Mathematics Seminar
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