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Amélie
ISTAR D: The contribution to sea-level rise of the Amundsen Sea sector of Antarctica.
Supervisors: Profs R Gurney and E Morris
This is a fully funded NERC funded studentship, available to UK and non-UK EU students (fees only). The closing date is 28th October 2012, and we will hold interviews on 9th November 2012, with the studentship commencing on January 1st 2013
Recent satellite observations of the Amundsen Sector ice streams have indicated mass loss in snow accumulations over the Pine Island, Thwaites and Smiths glaciers and that this loss is accelerating. Like much of the West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS) of which they form a part, their bed lies well below sea-level, and only their configuration, that rises inland from the coast, permits a weight of ice sufficient to exist to prevent them from floating off as a whole. Were they to do so, there is the possibility that WAIS would follow, with the consequence that some 3 m of water would be added to global sea level. Although there has been qualitative agreement as to the concentration of Antarctic mass loss in the Amundsen sector ice streams, there is no detailed agreement at to the mass loss, in Gt a-1, from the sector. While the satellites remain the best source of synoptic data, the uncertainties identified can only be reduced by field measurements. There will be two over-snow traverses of the Pine Island basin in consecutive years with associated sampling and Neutron Probe measurements.
We are seeking a student to participate in this ISTAR experiment while registered for a PhD. We will want someone with a good physical sciences background who is able to undertake field work in Antarctica. After full training in the UK and at Rothera Station (Antarctica) the Reading Ph.D. student will accompany the ISTAR traverse in 2013/14 and 2014/15 to make the neutron probe measurements and to support the work of other members of the ISTAR traverse team. In the UK the student will examine, with a more sophisticated model, the treatment of very near surface density in the present generation of forecast densification models. These crudely parameterise the complex processes of energy transfer and compaction in the upper firn which affect trends of short, although not decadal, altimetry time-series, and markedly impact the annual cycle of elevation. Capturing these is necessary to compare annual cycles in GRACE and altimetry data. The student will also compare the observed density profiles with those predicted from the forecast model in order to determine the error that may arise in using modelled densities to compare altimetric imbalances with those of the GRACE satellite.
For further details on the project and to apply, please use this link:
http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/pg-research/pgropportunities.html
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