I often have MSc and BSc students working with me on their thesis research, and also sometimes as summer interns. I enjoy working with students and hope they also learn some useful things. I and colleagues also produce *way* more data than we can possibly look at so there is plenty of potential to develop fun side projects that can turn into important science contributions. Below you’ll find a list of open projects that I think could be fun to work on. If any of these appeal to you please get in touch!
Ideally, I’m looking for students with some experience of coding (Python/R/Matlab/Julia – whatever shakes your tree) and some numerical insight, experience with the linux terminal is also an advantage. But this is not completely necessary, depending on what you’re interested in. Other students I have worked with have used GIS tools very successfully for example.
I am currently developing some introductory materials for those without this background so if there is something you’d like to work with me on that is not on the list below but that you think would be in my field of research then again – do get in touch.
How much snow is lost by sublimation? Taking advantage of new in situ observations around Greenland, we will calculate the evaporation and sublimation fluxes from snow covered ground and potentially also on the ice sheet. Then we will do the same in Antarctica. There are a very wide variety of estimates from regional climate models and rather little work has been done to evaluate them. How much mass loss are we missing?
Melt ponds, slush and ice sheet rivers: These are important features that don’t yet get included in most climate models, but they can have an impact far outweighing their small size. We now have access to satellite derived datasets that map these in great detail. This is an ambitious but extremely important project to apply machine learning methods to satellite datasets in order to develop new parameterisation schemes that will inidcate in future how fast meltwater ponds may lead to ice shelf collapse and rapid drainage giving way to ice sheet hydrology. We can probably split this one into at least two projects, but it would also suit a group project!
Note this one in currently in progress, but there will certainly be a spin off based on satellite data and expanding the findings across Greenland, so get in touch if you think it sounds cool!. How thick is the glacier melange? Based on from field observations in NW Greenland, this project will use OpenDroneMap or similar software with UAV data to map areas of the melange zone in front of study glaciers in Inglefield Bredning. The thickness maps will then be compared with satellite imagery to evaluate how well satellites can capture thickness and also to assess how important melange is in buttressing glaciers.
Can we improve the representation of ice sheets in the HARMONIE-Climate (HCLIM) model? This project will develop the HCLIM model over ice surfaces. It is a large model used in many countries, but the ice mask is very simple and needs to be upgraded to include some new processes like ice surface albedo and the surface roughness. This project would be perfect for a student interested in learning about and using a state-of-the-art climate model.
Fast climate forcing for ice sheets: In the course of the PROTECT project, DMI has developed an open surface energy and mass balance model that can be applied to any glacier or ice sheet. This allows us to take output from any global climate model and produce surface mass budget and runoff using statistical techniques to resolve the full surface energy balance. In this project, the student will apply this model to Greenland and/or Antarctica to assess the likely spread in the surface ice sheet contributions to global sea level rise over the next hundred years, under different climate scenarios. We will also compare these outputs with those from high resolution regional climate models to see how much added value more expensive models are. This work is part of the PRECISE project and will contribute to a new machine learning system under development to produce SMB quickly from global climate models.
What is the surface mass budget of Antarctica? (And Greenland?) Based on this paper (which was also originally an MSc project and that ultimately ended up as a figure in the last IPCC report), we find a wide variation in the estimates of how much snow falls and also snow melts on the continent. Taking advantage of the standardised set-up in PolarRES we aim to run 5 different regional climate models through the same SMB model to try to eliminate some of the sources of variability. This project aims to understand the processes controlling how ice sheets grow and shrink. We will produce an *enormous* amount of data – there are likely to be multiple projects associated with these. Please get in touch if you’re interested! This project is also a collaboration within the Horizon Europe OCEAN:ICE project.
Antarctic ice shelf stability in CMIP6 models: How well do global climate models represent present day climate over Antarctic ice shelves? What is the prognosis for the future? This project will use the “Melt index” developed in a recent paper and apply it to global climate model and/or new high resolution regional climate models to assess the present and future stability of Antarctic ice shelves.
Calving Processes and Melange at fjord terminating glaciers in Greenland – This project seeks to include ice melange (a mix of iceberg, water and sea ice at the front of calving outlet glaciers in Greenland) in to an ice sheet model and assess it’s importance for the stability of Greenland glaciers in fjords. The student will use a set-up of the PISM numerical ice sheet model to perform sensitivity tests and compare with data collected in the field in north-west Greenland. We intend this study to test parameterisations that will also be applied in Antarctica. There is also an opportunity to work with materials scientists at the Niels Bohr Institute to incorporate new phases field solutions for fracture and anisotropy in the model as part of the PRECISE project.
Fast downscaling of climate over Greenland and/or Antarctic ice sheets: In this project, the new CISSEMBEL model, developed at DMI will be used to produce ice sheet surface mass budget (the balance between snowfall and snow melt) directly from global climate models without first using an intermediate regional climate model. The output will then be compared with output from a regional climate model to see what are the likely biases in this approach and if we can improve them
Coupled climate and ice sheet modelling with a high resolution regional climate model: This is a very ambitious project probably most suited to a full time 9-12 month thesis and a candidate with some experience of working on a hpc system. It will aim to couple the HARMONIE-Climate regional climate model with the PISM ice sheet model to assess the importance or otherwise of including topographic changes over the ice sheet.
Ultra-high resolution regional climate modelling in NW Greenland: Another ambitious project suited to an MSc student with experience in running complex code. This project will use the state-of-the-art regional climate model HCLIM (Harmonie Climate) at km scale resolution to examine the effects of winds on the regional fjord scale climate of the Inglefield Bredning in NW Greenland. This project will analyse effects of winds on sea ice and if changes in ice sheet topography are likely to change local wind fields.
Polynyas in the present and future Arctic: What is the effect of polynyas on local and regional climate in the Arctic? How do they form? Is there a new polynya forming in northern Greenland regularly and what has changed to allow this, if so? This project will examine output from the new CARRA2 reanalysis together with satellite imagery to characterise changes in sea ice around Greenland and how they affect the local and regional climate.
Other Possibilities:
ESA Climate Research Fellowships: I am a member of the climate research group in the European Space Agency’s Climate Change Initiative for the Greenland Ice sheet and for the Sea Ice project. ESA now offers climate fellowships – funding for a 2 year postdoc with a contribution from the host institution. These have a deadline of January 2023, get in touch if you have a concrete idea you’d like to explore that you think would be relevant to collaborate on with me.
Carlsberg Research Foundation: It may also be possible to apply to one of the many science foundations in Denmark for funding.
Sterna Paradisaea 