Ice sheet and glacier stability in a warming world: Projecting future iceberg and sea level risks via rapid modelling and satellite image analysis

This fellowship will transform our understanding of how the ice sheets and glaciers at both poles will contribute to future sea level change, and anticipate future iceberg risks impacting the people, businesses and governments in these regions. Building on my recent work (Lea, 2018), significant cloud computing resources will be used to facilitate automated analysis of the unprecedented volume of Arctic and Antarctic satellite imagery that is generated every day. This is the first time that analysis at such scales will be undertaken, and would be otherwise unachievable using current glacier monitoring approaches.

Using results from this real-time updated analysis, a combination of new physically based and empirically based machine learning models will provide the first global assessment of glacier stability and framework to monitor this. This will allow significant improvements to short (<1 year) and long term (decadal) plans for infrastructure, industry projects and security as Arctic sea ice declines and both poles undergo major environmental changes. These factors are especially important for the UK as it impacts:
- The environment and security of UK administered territories in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.
- UK business making informed decisions on future project viability in polar regions, where icebergs pose a major hazard to shipping and infrastructure such as ports, rigs and subsea pipelines.
- The anticipated opening of the Northwest and Northeast Passage trade routes, offering UK business opportunities to significantly reduce the length and environmental impact of shipping. The future viability of these routes due to sudden glacier retreat and changing iceberg risks will have major implications for future UK supply chains between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have highlighted that the stability of marine terminating ice margins is a major uncertainty in global sea level change projections, and by extension iceberg risk. The existing barriers to achieving a global assessment of glacier stability are that:
- Current approaches to data collection (even for individual glaciers) can be extremely time intensive.
- The considerable computational power required by numerical models of glacier stability limits researchers to exploring only a few potential future scenarios.
Consequently only a handful of the 100s-1000s of these glaciers at each pole have been studied in detail, leaving our knowledge of future glacier and ice sheet stability woefully incomplete and poorly constrained. This fellowship's innovative image and stability analyses will directly address these challenges.

Ensuring that these novel findings have impact is built in as a key objective of this fellowship. Support from project partners will allow substantial and rarely achievable levels of engagement with the UK Government on objectives highlighted in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's recent publication 'Beyond the Ice: UK policy towards the Arctic' (2018), including: Projecting global influence; Protecting people and the environment; and Promoting prosperity. Three stakeholder events spanning the fellowship will also allow UK business to directly highlight their key concerns and help direct the generation of data products. These will be designed to allow UK business to make better informed decisions on the viability of ongoing and future projects in the polar regions.

Informed decision making relating to infrastructure at key locations is also in the UK's long term interest for the successful development of future trade routes. To this end, a three month placement at the Greenland Government's geoscience consultancy (Asiaq Greenland Survey) and regular trips as part of fieldwork to Greenland's largest city and deepwater port, Nuuk, will allow regular engagement with policymakers and industry at a pivotal location for the future development of the Northwest Passage shipping route.

Impact is a key objective of this fellowship. Close collaboration with project partners will allow rarely achievable levels of access to UK Government policymakers, UK industry, intergovernmental organisations, and the public (see Pathways to Impact). Working closely with PPs Burgess, Gray & Læsoe throughout the fellowship we will actively seek out opportunities for impact across these sectors to enable direct stakeholder engagement. This will help ensure that the fellowship aligns and contributes to HM Government's vision of a Global Britain, reaping both short and long term benefits to the UK.

The improved estimates of future sea level change arising from this fellowship will be of critical importance to HM Government for the informed planning of future major coastal infrastructure investments in: sea defences; the next generation of nuclear power stations; and the long term viability of the UK's ports amongst others. This directly overlaps with UK business interests who will rely on such infrastructure to operate effectively in the long term.
Intergovernmental organisations led by the UN IPCC also provide international fora for assessing similar risks posed by future climate change and developing policy. Calving glaciers still represent a major uncertainty in their estimates of sea level change, meaning that the projections generated by this fellowship (from two independent approaches) will reduce uncertainty, and contribute to shaping global policy towards how nations will respond to future climate change.

The anticipated decline of Arctic sea ice will also provide new opportunities for UK business in terms of shipping (opening of the Northwest and Northeast Passages), and extractive industries including fossil fuels, mining and fisheries. However, issues of safety related to rapid glacier retreat and changing iceberg conditions will pose a potentially significant future hazard to shipping and key international infrastructure in these areas (including ports, rigs and subsea pipelines). Disruptions and/or damage to these could considerably impact future UK supply chains, meaning that it is in the UK's long term interest to ensure that new routes and port infrastructure (e.g. Nuuk, Greenland for the Northwest Passage) are viable in the long term, and that vulnerable locations are monitored.

In providing the first pan-Arctic assessment of glacier stability, this fellowship will help identify these vulnerable locations, forecast regional short and long term hazards, and anticipate risks posed to future international infrastructure developments. The fellowship will therefore allow UK industry operating in the Arctic (and Southern Ocean for years 5-7) to make informed decisions regarding short and long term project risk.

Concerns relating to the viability of shipping routes, safety of infrastructure and the security implications of these are also of significant interest to non-UK governments with territorial claims over these waters (including NATO allies). The UK has observer status on the intergovernmental Arctic Council where such issues are discussed, while the Foreign and Commonwealth Office also has a stated aim for the UK to both "remain a significant player in Arctic affairs", and be "a responsible steward of its interests" (HM Government, 2018:p2). By providing assessments of current and future iceberg risks in the region, the results of this fellowship will help contribute directly to this.

Significant public engagement opportunities also arise from this fellowship, with glaciers often being highlighted as dramatic physical representations of how climate has changed since the Industrial Age. Tools and results generated by this fellowship are therefore well positioned for the development of high school-university level educational resources, media engagement and impact on the public's perception of climate change.

Ref: HM Government (2018) Beyond the Ice: UK policy towards the Arctic