Meltwater Retention In the Greenland Percolation zone

I am a member of ArcTrain project, which is an international collaborative research and training experience program between Canadian and German scientists funded by NSERC CREATE. I am offered the opportunity to study for four to twelve months at a partner institution in Germany, to develop a better model for my research on Greenland Ice Sheet hydrology. My research aims to parameterize the vertical transport of meltwater in glacier snow and firn (a transitional material between snow to ice), in order to better understand glacier and ice sheet hydrology and mass balance. Specifically, I am studying the extent and depth of meltwater percolation and refreezing and the associated thermodynamics in the upper 20 m of the snow/firn layer on the Greenland Ice Sheet. This research will enhance our understanding and of firn hydrologic processes and feed into numerical models of Greenland Ice Sheet response to climate change. The models that we are developing for coupled firn thermal and hydrological processes complement observational studies of firn compaction and hydrology being done by U.S., German, and Danish colleagues in the FirnCover project.

Faculty Supervisor:

Shawn Marshall

Student:

Partner:

Universität Bremen

Discipline:

Earth science

Sector:

Environmental Science and Technology; Water; Natural Resources

University:

University of Calgary

Program: