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Jakobshavn Isbrae's subglacial drainage system and its fast flow
Jakobshavn Isbrae is the fastest flowing ice stream on Earth and drains a substantial fraction of the Greenland ice sheet. What makes it flow so fast and how its dynamics will be impacted by the ongoing climate change is far from clear. The aim of this thesis is to model the subglacial drainage system below Jakobshavn, which sets the lower boundary condition for its ice dynamics, and investigate whether this could be a root-cause for its fast flow.
The subglacial drainage system is know to exert a key influence on ice dynamics via modulating the basal boundary condition. You will be applying the state-of-the-art subglacial drainage model GlaDS to Jakobshavn Isbrae, one of the largest ice streams on Earth, to investigate what its drainage system could look like. A particular focus will lie on quantifying how the drainage system is impacted by the deep bed-topography trough and its many overdeepenings through which Jakobshavn flows. Your task will be: to prepare the input data, such as bed and surface topography, to setup the model, to conduct model runs to explore the parameter and input-data space, and to evaluate the results. In a second phase you will look at how the drainage system was influenced by Jakobshavn's retreat over the last few decades and try to extrapolate this into the future.
The subglacial drainage system is know to exert a key influence on ice dynamics via modulating the basal boundary condition. You will be applying the state-of-the-art subglacial drainage model GlaDS to Jakobshavn Isbrae, one of the largest ice streams on Earth, to investigate what its drainage system could look like. A particular focus will lie on quantifying how the drainage system is impacted by the deep bed-topography trough and its many overdeepenings through which Jakobshavn flows. Your task will be: to prepare the input data, such as bed and surface topography, to setup the model, to conduct model runs to explore the parameter and input-data space, and to evaluate the results. In a second phase you will look at how the drainage system was influenced by Jakobshavn's retreat over the last few decades and try to extrapolate this into the future.
The goals are to find out whether:
- the subglacial drainage system could be responsible for Jakobshavn's fast flow,
- how the basal boundary condition changed over the last few decades, and
- how it may change in the future.
The goals are to find out whether:
- the subglacial drainage system could be responsible for Jakobshavn's fast flow,
- how the basal boundary condition changed over the last few decades, and