Ice and Climate

The course focuses on ice sheets and their role in climate studies, especially on how to infer knowledge of their past evolution and extract information on the climate of the past from ice cores drilled on a dynamic ice sheet. The course aims at providing the tools for understanding ice core data, i.e. how to create time scales for the ice cores and how to model the evolution of ice sheets in response to climate change. There will be a special focus on the interpretation of Greenland water stable isotope records and borehole temperature records, and how to extract past temperature conditions and the ice sheet evolution from these records using data combined with models.
 

The course is based on lectures and computer experiments where the students will use programming tools (e.g. Python) for creating models of ice sheet evolution, ice sheet time scales and ice sheet temperatures. The course will cover the following subjects:

• Ice sheet flow and evolution, with focus on the role of ice flow and climate on the extent, thickness, and internal stratigraphy.
• Ice core time scales based on steady-state flow models.
• Stable water isotopes and their climatic interpretation, Rayleigh modeling of isotopic fractionation.
• Non-steady state ice flow modeling, taking into account changes in precipitation and ice sheet evolution.
• Densification of snow to ice.
• Temperatures in ice sheets, the roles of advective and diffusive processes.
• Methods and data used in ice sheet and ice core studies