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International Symposium on Earth's Disappearing Ice: Drivers, Reponses and Impacts
last update: Jan 05, 2010 03:34 PM
A celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Byrd Polar Research Center.
| What |
|
|---|---|
| When |
Aug 15, 2010 12:00 AM
to Aug 20, 2010 12:00 AM |
| Where | Byrd Center, Ohio State University, USA |
| Contact Name | Ellen Mosley-Thompson |
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Overview
One of the most visible indicators of climate change is the response of Earth's ice cover. Over the second half of the 20th century alpine glaciers worldwide retreated. Satellite observations over the last two decades reveal rapid changes in many outlet glaciers that drain large sections of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Ice shelf disintegration is becoming more frequent with consequences for the discharge of land-based ice to the oceans. The extent of summer sea ice on the Arctic Ocean is declining and ice free summer conditions well before the end of the century are not outside the realm of possibility. This symposium will focus on the drivers for such changes, the potential feedbacks and responses of the climate system to these changes and the likely impacts that might be expected in response to the ongoing large-scale deglaciation of the planet. An additional goal of the symposium is to identify major gaps in our scientific understanding, observational databases, modeling approaches and the need for enhanced human capital and fiscal resources to advance our predictive capability.
Themes
- Sea ice extent and thickness changes in the Arctic and Antarctic, focusing on the different driving mechanisms, responses in the Arctic versus the Antarctic, potential impacts on the ocean-atmosphere system, regional climate variability, polar ecosystems, human systems and infrastructure.
- Tidewater glacier dynamics, iceberg calving and sedimentation dynamics, including observations and parameterizations of calving from floating and grounded termini, the role of sedimentation in grounding line stability, and interactions between ice-marginal processes and glacier speed.
- Ice shelf dynamics, including oceanic forcing of basal melting and freezing, the preconditioning and eventual mechanisms by which breakup occurs, impacts of breakup on the ocean-atmosphere system and adjacent land-based ice, limitations to ice-shelf break-up suggested by past ice-sheet and ice-shelf configurations, and break-up scenarios under other climate regimes suggested by paleo-oceanographic and glacial geologic inference.
- Ice streams and outlet glacier dynamics, including observations and modeling to elucidate the key mechanisms controlling flow and discharge with particular emphasis on subglacial processes.
- Glacier and ice sheet mass balance, including a global inventory and assessments, atmospheric and oceanic forcing, response to large-scale modes of climate variability, observational methods, modeling approaches and predictions, upscaling, partitioning into climatic and dynamic mass balance components, key unknowns, critical observations and limitations to progress.
- Alpine glaciers (at all latitudes), including observations, driving mechanisms, modeling, impacts on associated watersheds and related societal impacts. Special emphasis on alpine glacier changes in regions where traditional forms of glaciological survey are limited and that may be especially vulnerable to climate change (such as the Himalayas and South American Andes).
- Records of past glacier changes, including proxy histories that elucidate key drivers, responses and response rates.
