Title: The Cryosperic Processes and Remote Sensing Laboratory Seminars Series: Modeling subglacial hydraulic processes and their effect on ice dynamics

Subject:

Start: 12:00 pm - Nov 25, 2009

End: 01:00 pm - Nov 25, 2009

Description: November 25th, 2009 - 12:00 Room J107, Marshak Building Gwenn Flowers Assistant Professor & Canada Research Chair in Glaciology Department of Earth Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Canada Glaciers and ice sheets are expected to make significant contributions to 21st century sea level. Our understanding of their flow regimes and some recent observational surprises make it clear that glacier and ice sheet dynamics complicate projections of the future of these ice masses. Decades of research on alpine glaciers, and more recent research in Greenland and Antarctica, has shown that subglacial hydrology is an important determinant of ice dynamics in many places. In this talk I will illustrate how the complex system of glacier drainage can be conceptualized and articulated in simple numerical models. Using examples from alpine glaciers and ice caps, I will highlight the successes and shortcomings of these models and show how ice dynamical models can incorporate hydrology. With an eye toward extending this work to larger (ice-sheet) scales, preliminary results will be presented from an effort to couple hydrology and dynamics in two-dimensional tidewater glacier model. For information please contact: mtedesco@sci.ccny.cuny.edu