ISSM Collaborations – NASA Science

UCI-Ice Sheet Modeling Group

The Ice Sheet Modeling Group at the University of California Irvine focuses on better understanding and explaining ongoing changes in the Cryosphere, or the frozen parts of the Earth, using numerical modeling. They are interested in understanding the interactions of ice and climate by combining state-of-the-art numerical modeling with remote sensing and in situ data. In particular, we are interested in determining how the ice sheet, ice caps and mountain glaciers will respond to climate change in the coming century.

UCI-Rignot Research Group

The primary interest of Eric Rignot’s research group at the University of California Irvine is to understand the interactions of ice and climate, in particular to determine how the ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland will respond to climate change in the coming century and how they will affect global sea level.
Their research combines satellite remote sensing techniques (imaging radar, laser altimetry, radio echo sounding) airborne geophysical surveys, field surveys (GPR, GPS) and numerical modeling (ice sheet motion and ocean circulation near glaciers).
The ISSM team uses data provided by the Rignot research group to improve ice sheet models, infer unknown parameters and validate model results.

ECCO2

The ECCO2 (Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean, Phase II) project goal is to increase understanding and predictive capability for the ocean’s role in future climate change scenarios. ECCO2 aims to produce increasingly accurate syntheses of all available global-scale ocean and sea-ice data at resolutions that start to resolve ocean eddies and other narrow current systems, which transport heat, carbon, and other properties within the ocean.
Our collaboration aims at better understanding the interactions between ocean and ice by coupling the ISSM and the ice shelf cavity model developed in the ECCO2 project. We conduct sensitivity studies of the ice-ocean system and ice sheet evolution in a warmer climate; performing model projections of the Antarctic Ice Sheet in a warmer climate is the long term goal of this research.

INSA Toulouse

We are working with Jerome Monnier from INSA Toulouse on the elaboration of new numerical models, numerical schemes and model validation methods.

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