Objective
The potential of marine ice sheets to undergo rapid irreversible retreat has been considered in the glaciological community since the 1970s. One of the world’s major marine ice sheets, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), contains enough ice to raise global mean sea level by approximately 5m. However, of immediate relevance to policy makers, the likely rate of WAIS contribution to sea level change on century timescales is not known.
This project will couple a state of the art ice sheet model and ocean circulation model. Ice sheet models are only now reaching sufficient maturity to be applied to predictive studies of marine ice sheet behaviour, partly due to the candidate’s recent advances in modelling the grounding line (the line dividing ice grounded on bedrock from the floating part of the ice sheet). Ocean models incorporating ice shelf cavity processes are also emerging, and the candidate’s collaborators at the outgoing host are leading development in this area. Ice sheet – ocean model coupling is essential in predictive studies due to the feedback between evolving ice shelf cavity geometry/grounding line location and ice shelf cavity circulation via sub ice shelf melt rates.
The model will be applied to the Pine Island Glacier (PIG), an important outlet glacier draining a portion of the WAIS, which has been studied extensively and is currently thinning at an increasing rate. The project will use new coupled model and Bayesian calibration techniques to ascertain whether the PIG has crossed a threshold for irreversible retreat and provide a probabilistic quantification of the PIG contribution to sea level change over the next two centuries.
The project is novel in the ice sheet - ocean coupling (this will be the first 3D ocean circulation model fully coupled to an evolving ice sheet model) and in the use of Bayesian calibration to provide a probabilistic prediction, an approach rarely used in glaciology.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IOF
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
8092 Zuerich
Switzerland
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.