New Technology for Glaciology - 2027-2029
Lead Research Organisation:
CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
Abstract
Climate change is the defining issue of our time. The UN Secretary-General recently declared that we have failed to limit anthropogenic climate warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Whilst corrective action can still be taken, the importance of achieving accurate predictions of sea-level rise is vital for policymakers, and these predictions depend upon models of the behaviour of the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland. Crucial to understanding the response of ice sheets to climate change is the role of subglacial hydrology (i.e. water flowing under the ice of glaciers and ice sheets), and specifically the role of liquid meltwater, both as a direct contributor to sea level rise, and in lubricating and accelerating ice movement.
With this Fellowship, I set out to deliver an innovative real-time approach to glaciology, through the development of new technology for observing and characterising the complex hydrological networks of ice of glaciers and ice sheets on a year-round basis rather than solely in the summer months. Four years on, my team and I are delivering that vision, with instruments deployed and providing real-time data for more than a year at field sites in both Greenland and Canada.
Overall, the project is going very well. I have hired an excellent team who work well together and whose expertise is growing by the day. Together, we have designed and built mechanical and electronic hardware, firmware, and cyberinfrastructure (software, servers and cloud services), which have been repeatedly tested and deployed in demanding Arctic environments. We have overcome some significant logistics challenges and enhanced our skills and experience. Novel data from observations in the autumn season are proving especially valuable, validating my original vision that year-round observations would provide additional insight into glacier and ice sheet behaviour.
This proposal requests continued funding to complete our field campaigns in Greenland and Canada, and to further develop our novel wireless instruments. Our Cryoegg instrument measures conditions within water channels under the ice and reports the data live. We have shown that we can observe water pressure, temperature and electrical conducitivity, and now plan to enhance Cryoegg with additional passive seismic capability allowing us to "listen" to the sounds of running water and estimate how much water is flowing past it.
We have also had a successful deployment in Canada using our Cryowurst instruments, which measure conditions within a vertical borehole in the ice. These observe movement of the ice (ice dynamics) as well as hydrological conditions under the ice. This proposal requests funding to continue operating this field site for a further 3 years, as we hope to observe a glacier surge - a rarely-observed phenomemon where the glacier suddenly advances forward, and which can cause catastrophic flooding events.
We will also make this new technology available to the glaciological community through training, open-source design, and a spin-out company.
With this Fellowship, I set out to deliver an innovative real-time approach to glaciology, through the development of new technology for observing and characterising the complex hydrological networks of ice of glaciers and ice sheets on a year-round basis rather than solely in the summer months. Four years on, my team and I are delivering that vision, with instruments deployed and providing real-time data for more than a year at field sites in both Greenland and Canada.
Overall, the project is going very well. I have hired an excellent team who work well together and whose expertise is growing by the day. Together, we have designed and built mechanical and electronic hardware, firmware, and cyberinfrastructure (software, servers and cloud services), which have been repeatedly tested and deployed in demanding Arctic environments. We have overcome some significant logistics challenges and enhanced our skills and experience. Novel data from observations in the autumn season are proving especially valuable, validating my original vision that year-round observations would provide additional insight into glacier and ice sheet behaviour.
This proposal requests continued funding to complete our field campaigns in Greenland and Canada, and to further develop our novel wireless instruments. Our Cryoegg instrument measures conditions within water channels under the ice and reports the data live. We have shown that we can observe water pressure, temperature and electrical conducitivity, and now plan to enhance Cryoegg with additional passive seismic capability allowing us to "listen" to the sounds of running water and estimate how much water is flowing past it.
We have also had a successful deployment in Canada using our Cryowurst instruments, which measure conditions within a vertical borehole in the ice. These observe movement of the ice (ice dynamics) as well as hydrological conditions under the ice. This proposal requests funding to continue operating this field site for a further 3 years, as we hope to observe a glacier surge - a rarely-observed phenomemon where the glacier suddenly advances forward, and which can cause catastrophic flooding events.
We will also make this new technology available to the glaciological community through training, open-source design, and a spin-out company.