Eef van Dongen: Monitoring and numerical modelling of glacier dynamics on Greenland

The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets hold enough ice to raise global mean sea level by 65 m. Ice sheets loose mass by melt runoff and the breaking off of icebergs at glacier fronts (known as calving). The response of ice sheets to climate change is non-linear and not all involved feedbacks are well understood. Therefore, we have developed and applied numerical models of varying levels of complexity to study these feedbacks (from 1D to 3D, using FEM and DEM, from daily to yearly timescales), together with field work for input data and model validation. Simulations illustrate how melt at the ice-ocean interface can undercut glacier fronts, which may have potentially large impacts on the size of resulting icebergs. However, this feedback depends on the calving mechanism at play, which exemplifies the need to improve models of ice sheet dynamics, to reduce uncertainties in sea level rise projections.