Ice sheet elevation variability and change from space

https://www.utas.edu.au/research/degrees/available-projects?id=12172

(Application deadline is Aug 1, GMT+10h, commencement ASAP with some flexibility)

This project will develop new datasets of the elevation change of some of the most sensitive parts of the Antarctic Ice Sheet to climate change.

Using raw satellite altimetry data since 1992 the project focuses on building a new record of ice sheet elevation change, covering fast-flowing ice streams and ice shelves. The project will focus on Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers in West Antarctica, which are rapidly changing, and the emerging roles of Totten and Denman glaciers in East Antarctica.

The project will have a particular focus on the decadal variability of ice elevation as a way of understanding the sensitivity of these glaciers to climate variability and change. From these time series of observed ice elevation, we will work to separate the two major drivers of variability – variation in snowfall and variation in dynamic mass loss.

The project will produce new insights into the sensitivity of Antarctica's most prominent glaciers and yield new datasets that will be widely used to understand anthropogenic climate change and the natural climate-driven variability of Antarctica's most sensitive regions. The project will enable the candidate to develop skills in spaceborne research, data analysis, code development, and written and oral communication.

This exciting PhD project is part of a larger Australian Research Council project, with a team of ~10 researchers involved, including another PhD student and a postdoctoral researcher working closely together. It allows a candidate to work on a pressing societal problem and involves collaborations with leading glaciologists and geodesists in Australia and the USA.

Resolving glacier and solid Earth interactions in the Antarctic Peninsula with machine learning and numerical modelling

https://www.utas.edu.au/research/degrees/available-projects?id=12039

(Application deadline is Aug 1, GMT+10h, commencement is flexible)

This project will develop new knowledge of how often-rapidly thinning glaciers in the Antarctic Peninsula impact the solid Earth beneath the ice, revealing the Earth's viscoelastic properties. Advancing knowledge of this process, known as glacial isostatic adjustment, is a key to understanding past, present, and future sea level rise.

To do this, it will leverage a globally unique natural experiment driven by the 2002 collapse of the Larsen B Ice Shelf in the Antarctic Peninsula. This led to the almost immediate onset of glacier thinning, of up to 30 metres per year, and then rapid uplift of the solid Earth due to viscoelastic deformation. This experiment enables us to understand the solid Earth’s response to changes in surface loading, testing competing ideas.

The project will first use machine learning, likely physics-informed neural networks, to create a monthly record of elevation change of the glaciers feeding the Larsen B Ice Shelf. This part of the project will use extensive but intermittent data on ice elevation, grounding line location and velocity, combined with the theory of the physics of glaciers.

In a second phase, it will use these data in a new model of the solid Earth’s viscoelastic response to surface loading, G-ADOPT, to test different theories (rheological models) of how the Earth responds to glacier loading changes.

This is an exciting project that will build skills in machine learning, data handling, numerical modelling and create fundamental new knowledge on how the solid Earth works. This has implications for our understanding of past, present and future ice sheet and sea-level change.

This project is a part of Prof Matt King’s ARC Laureate Fellowship, which will build a team of 10-15 researchers focused on tracking and predicting change in the East Antarctic ice sheet. While this project’s focus is on the Antarctic Peninsula the knowledge it creates will inform on other parts of the project. The PhD student will also work closely with a postdoctoral researcher working on modelling glacial isostatic adjustment using G-ADOPT.