NSF-NERC: Disintegration of Marine Ice-sheets using Novel Optimised Simulations (DOMINOS)

NSF-NERC：使用新型优化模拟 (DOMINOS) 解体海洋冰盖

基本信息

批准号：
1738896
负责人：
Jeremy Bassis
金额：
$ 65.96万
依托单位：
Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Continuing Grant
财政年份：
2018
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2018-04-01 至 2025-03-31
项目状态：
未结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1738896&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
NSF NERC Disintegration Marine Ice

项目摘要

This project contributes to the joint initiative launched by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to substantially improve decadal and longer-term projections of ice loss and sea-level rise originating from Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. There is growing consensus that Thwaites Glacier is unstable and vulnerable to collapse. However, there is significant disagreement in projections of rates of mass loss, with some studies suggesting century to millennial scale retreat and others forecasting more catastrophic disintegration. These disagreements are significant because rapid disintegration of Thwaites and adjacent glaciers could potentially trigger or accelerate collapse of significant portions of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet with implications for global mean sea-level rise in the coming decades. Predicting rates of ice loss from Thwaites Glacier is currently hampered by a lack of reliable models of ice fracture and breakaway--called iceberg calving--and the interactions between calving and climate change. This study addresses this major knowledge gap, and is motivated by the need to improve sea-level projections critical for policy and planning. Moreover, there is also a gap between what scientists assert about the usefulness of sea-level rise predictions and stakeholder's perceptions of the usability of that work. This project is also geared to address this gap, by identifying the information that is accessible and usable to a broad community of stakeholders whilst proactively engaging with under-represented communities at nearby community colleges and school districts, engaging community college students in research. Projected rates of sea-level rise from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (and Thwaites Glacier in particular) have large uncertainties due to difficulties in understanding and projecting the calving and dynamic processes that control the ice-sheet stability. This uncertainty is magnified by the poorly understood connection between calving processes, ice-sheet stability and climate. To address these uncertainties, this project seeks to explicitly resolve the processes that could cause retreat and collapse of Thwaites Glacier using a novel ice-dynamics model suite. This model suite includes a discrete element model capable of simulating coupled fracture and ice-flow processes, a 3D full Stokes continuum model, and the continental scale ice-dynamics model (BISICLES). Ice-dynamics models will be coupled to an ocean forcing model suite including simple plume models, intermediate complexity 2-layer ocean models and fully 3D regional ocean models. This hierarchical approach will use high-fidelity process models to inform and constrain the sequence of lower-order models needed to extrapolate improved understanding to larger scales and has the potential to radically reduce uncertainty of rates of marine ice-sheet collapse and associated sea-level rise. The large-scale modeling approach will be tested and implemented within the open source BISICLES ice dynamics model and made publicly available to other researchers via a "calving package".This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该项目有助于美国国家科学基金会（NSF）和英国自然环境研究委员会（NERC）发起的联合倡议，从而实质上改善了来自西南阿尔蒂卡的Thwaites Glacier的冰丢失和海平面上升的十年和长期预测。越来越多的共识是，冰川冰川不稳定且容易崩溃。但是，大规模损失率的预测存在很大的分歧，一些研究表明，世纪以千禧一代的量表撤退，而其他研究则预测了更多的灾难性瓦解。这些分歧是重大的，因为Thwaites和相邻冰川的快速瓦解可能会触发或加速南极西部冰盖的大部分地区的崩溃，这对未来几十年的全球平均海平面上升的影响影响。目前，由于缺乏可靠的冰骨折模型和破裂的冰山产犊，以及产犊与气候变化之间的相互作用，预测Thwaites冰川造成的冰损失率。这项研究解决了这一主要知识差距，并且是由于需要改善对政策和计划至关重要的海平面预测的动机。此外，科学家对海平面上升预测的有用性的说法与利益相关者对该工作的可用性的看法之间也存在差距。该项目还旨在通过确定可访问且可用于广泛的利益相关者社区的信息，同时积极地与附近社区学院和学区代表性不足的社区互动，使社区学院的学生参与研究。由于在理解和投射控制冰盖稳定性的产犊和动态过程方面的困难，预计从南极冰盖（尤其是Thwaites冰川）上升的海平面上升速率很大。由于产犊过程，冰盖稳定性和气候之间的联系知识不足，这种不确定性被放大。为了解决这些不确定性，该项目旨在明确解决可能使用新型的冰 - 动力学模型套件来解决可能导致Thwaites Glacier静修和崩溃的过程。该模型套件包括一个离散的元素模型，该模型能够模拟耦合断裂和冰流过程，3D完整的Stokes Continuum模型以及大陆尺度的冰界模型（Bisicles）。冰 - 动力学模型将与海洋强迫模型套件耦合，包括简单的羽流模型，中间复杂性2层海洋模型和完全3D区域海洋模型。这种层次结构方法将使用高保真过程模型来告知和限制将改进的理解推断到更大尺度所需的低阶模型的顺序，并有可能从根本上降低海洋冰淇淋崩溃率的不确定性以及相关的海平面上升。大规模建模方法将在开源双源双冰动力学模型中进行测试和实施，并通过“产犊软件包”向其他研究人员公开使用。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的审查标准通过评估来通过评估来获得支持的。