CDI-Type II: Dynamics of Ice Sheets: Advanced Simulation Models, Large-Scale Data Inversion, and Quantification of Uncertainty in Sea Level Rise Projections

University Of Texas At Austin, Austin TX

Investigators

Abstract

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). Simplified ice sheet models in current use are incapable of accounting for the dynamics of flow transitions that are key to how ice sheets respond to environmental change. It is these regions that are now rapidly changing. The concern is that currently stable portions of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets that are grounded below sea level could become unhinged and raise sea level by many meters. High fidelity models of the full mass, momentum, and energy equations for ice sheets have the potential to resolve flow transitions, leading to greatly improved predictions of sea level rise. Moreover, extensive airborne geophysical surveys in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet incorporating ice penetrating radar and laser altimetry as well as gravity and magnetic observations have recently been completed by researchers from this project team. These and other surveys provide the crucial observational data from which uncertain rheological parameters and boundary conditions for high fidelity ice sheet models may be inferred. However, manifold modeling and computational challenges must be overcome before this scientific agenda can be pursued. The team proposes a a new research path founded on innovations in computational thinking and innovative uses of computational thinking that addresses these challenges and will catalyze a paradigm shift in the field of glaciology, leading for the first time to systematically quantified uncertainties in predictions of ice sheet dynamics. In terms of broader impacts, the project will involve a robust program of education and outreach, as befits a project with such broad societal impacts. In particular, the team will: (1) Contribute the work to the Community Ice Sheet Model (CISM) initiative in support of efforts to evaluating uncertainties and likelihoods of various ice sheet collapse scenarios and the abrupt sea level response with ongoing climate change. (2) Release all codes developed in this project under open- source licenses, not only the new ice sheet simulator, but also the core enabling technology codes (parallel AMR, uncertainty quantification, inverse solvers), thus benefiting a much broader community of computational scientists working on a much wider set of problems beyond glaciology. (3) Enhance the Wired Antarctica website with an easy-to-use interactive front end that accesses a family of ice sheet simulators. This portal was developed by co-PI Ginny Catania as an education and outreach effort on Antarctica and Antarctic research for K-12 students.