Project description
The science and history of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets
Despite increased interest in the physical study of ice sheets, very little attention has been given to their scientific and political history. However, if our societal and governmental response to ice sheet melt is to be fully informed, a more nuanced analysis of how ice sheet knowledge has been produced and utilised in the past is urgently needed. The EU-funded ICEglobe project will address this knowledge gap by researching the intertwined processes of scientific and cultural exchange between the different sources of information on the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The initiative will analyse the collaborative, technological and geopolitical contexts that have shaped our knowledge to determine how the modelling of ice sheets and melt have influenced the idea of reciprocity and coexistence between humanity and nature.
Objective
The proposed project 'The Globalisation of Ice Sheets: a Scientific and Political History' (ICEglobe) charts and questions the historical processes of knowledge production and utilization that have transformed the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets from geographical unknowns into objects of global significance within the context of climate change. Forecasting the future of ice sheets, their contribution to sea level rise and its global consequences has become a top priority for governments and international bodies such as the IPCC. Despite the increased resources allocated to the physical study of ice sheets, however, very little attention has been given to their scientific and political history. ICEglobe argues that if our societal and governmental response to ice sheet melt is to be fully informed and effective, there is an urgent need for more nuanced analysis of how ice sheet knowledge has been produced and utilized in the past. Drawing on the archives of the Scott Polar Research Institute in the University of Cambridge (the host), of my secondment partner organisation, and of other repositories in Europe and internationally, the project will research the intertwined processes of scientific and cultural exchange between the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. It will examine the collaborative, technological and geopolitical contexts that have shaped ice sheet knowledge over the same period; it will question how ice sheet modelization and melt have sparked the re-emergence of debates around catastrophism and irreversibility; and it will consider how ice sheets challenge the idea and logic of human-nature reciprocity and coexistence. ICEglobe will be supervised by a Cultural, Political and Historical Geographer specialized in the Polar Regions and will be enriched by the Canditate’s longstanding interdisciplinary interest in the cryosphere. It will result in four papers and the first comprehensive monograph on the scientific and political history of ice sheets.
Fields of science
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
CB2 1TN Cambridge
United Kingdom