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Quaternary geology and Paleoclimate

Potential sea-level contribution from marine terminating glaciers on Greenland

PhD candidate: Karita Kajanto

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Supervision: Prof. Kerim H. Nisancioglu (UiB), Dr. Helene Seroussi (JPL)

Project period: November 2017 – October 2021

This PhD project is a part of the European Research Council project Ice2ice.

My PhD project focuses on the dynamics of marine terminating glaciers, using Jakobshavn isbræ in Greenland as a case study. Both atmospheric and oceanic conditions control the evolution of marine terminating glaciers, but their relative contribution is still to a large extent unclear. It is assumed that when considering the evolution of a marine terminating glacier in different time scales, different processes dominate. I will focus on investigating the relative significance and interconnectedness of marine and atmospheric forcings. I’m interested in what effects surface mass balance changes can have on the processes controlling marine terminating glaciers such as submarine melt or viscosity of the shear margins. I will parameterize and test these connections. I will construct a model of Jakobshavn isbræ to simulate the glacier’s retreat during the Holocene and study which forcings replicate the glacier’s extents reconstructed from proxy data. I use the Ice Sheet System Model (ISSM) developed by NASA.