GLIMPSE is a 5-year project to investigate the controls on thinning at the margin of the

Greenland Ice Sheet The Greenland ice sheet ( da, Grønlands indlandsis, kl, Sermersuaq) is a vast body of ice covering , roughly near 80% of the surface of Greenland. It is sometimes referred to as an ice cap, or under the term ''inland ice'', or its Danish equ ...

. It is based in the Glaciology Group at the School of the Environment and Society, Swansea

University A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

. The project is headed by Professor

Tavi Murray Tavi Murray, is a glaciologist, the eighth woman to be awarded the Polar Medal. Education After school in Twickenham Murray gained a BSc degree with first class honours in Physics and Computer Science from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. I ...

and is funded through a

Leverhulme Trust The Leverhulme Trust () is a large national grant-making organisation in the United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the n ...

Research Leadership Award presented to Murray in mid-2007.

Rationale

Southern Greenland's margins and outlet glaciers are thinning at a dramatic rate, and this rate appears to be accelerating. These changes will have profound implications for global sea levels, ocean circulation, regional climate, and society. The acceleration in the rate of thinning represents more than simply melting, and coincides with major changes in the dynamics of outlet glaciers (e.g. Rignot & Kanagaratnam 2006). The ice sheet models we use to predict

sea level rise Globally, sea levels are rising due to human-caused climate change. Between 1901 and 2018, the globally averaged sea level rose by , or 1–2 mm per year on average.IPCC, 2019Summary for Policymakers InIPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cry ...

do not include outlet glacier dynamic processes, and consequently underestimate Greenland's sea level contribution (Alley et al. 2005). Moreover, our available records of thickness changes are not long enough to be sure whether they represent profound alterations in the ice sheet's behaviour or simply expected natural variability. GLIMPSE is building a world-leading and multi-disciplinary group in Swansea which collaborates with international experts to address these deficiencies. This research will place the known volume change observations in a longer temporal context, identify controls on outlet glacier dynamics, and incorporate these controls within ice sheet models. The key result will be better predictions of the future extent and behaviour of the Greenland ice sheet and therefore of future sea level rise.

Project members

At its peak GLIMPSE will consist of 5 post-doctoral researchers and 3 postgraduate researchers. Currently the project consists of: : Professor Tavi Murray, Principal Investigator :Dr Timothy James, Project Manager and postdoctoral researcher :Dr Kilian Scharrer, Postdoctoral Researcher :Dr Anna Hughes, Postdoctoral Researcher :Dr Adam Booth, Postdoctoral Researcher :Dr Suzanne Bevan, Postdoctoral Researcher :Nick Selmes, Postgraduate Research Student :Sue Cook, Postgraduate Research Student :Jonathan McGovern, Postgraduate Research Student :Laura Cordero Llana, Postgraduate Research Student Project partners include: :Dr Ian Rutt, Swansea University, UK :Dr Adrian Luckman, Swansea University, UK :William Krabill, NASA, Cryospheric Sciences Branch, USA :Dr Matt King, Newcastle University, UK :Dr Tollý Aðalgeirsdóttir, DMI, Denmark

References

* Rignot E, Kanagaratnam P, 2006, Changes in the velocity structure of the Greenland ice sheet, Science, 311(5763), 986–990. * Alley RB et al. Ice-sheet and sea-level changes, Science, 310 (5747): 456-460 OCT 21 2005.

External links

GLIMPSE Project website

Swansea Glaciology

Swansea University

The Leverhulme Trust
Environment of Greenland Glaciology Arctic research Swansea University 21st century in the Arctic {{greenland-stub