Event Details

DSNE Seminar with Stephen Chuter, University of Bristol (ice sheets)

Land ice is the largest single contributor to eustatic sea level rise, and its contribution has been increasing in magnitude over the last 15 years. As a result, it is imperative to have accurate and robust estimates of contemporary ice sheet mass balance in order provide closure to the sea level budget.

In this seminar I will present current progress on the application of a Bayesian Hierarchical Model (BHM) approach to determine trends in ice sheet mass balance since 2003. This approach allows us to utilise a wide range of observational datasets (from satellite to ground based) in order to determine not only the total rates of mass change, but also the relative contribution of each ice sheet latent process at a drainage basin spatial scale. This technique complements forward solutions to measuring ice sheet mass balance and can be used a validation tool for geophysical models.

I will give an overview of future opportunities for the framework, such as incorporating observations from the recently launched ICESat-2, GRACE-FO and Sentinel-3 missions, in order to extend the time series into the next decade. I will also discuss how this research integrates into the wider ERC GlobalMass project (www.globalmass.eu), based at the University of Bristol.