Elmer/Ice News

Results from the Ice Thickness Models Intercomparison eXperiment Phase 2 (ITMIX2)

J. Fürst has participated to ITMIX2 with Elmer/Ice!

Knowing the ice thiITMIX2ckness distribution of a glacier is of fundamental importance for a number of applications, ranging from the planning of glaciological fieldwork to the assessments of future sea-level change. Across spatial scales, however, this knowledge is limited by the paucity and discrete character of available thickness observations. To obtain a spatially coherent distribution of the glacier ice thickness, interpolation or numerical models have to be used.

Whilst the first phase of the Ice Thickness Models Intercomparison eXperiment (ITMIX) focused on approaches that estimate such spatial information from characteristics of the glacier surface alone, ITMIX2 sought insights for the capability of the models to extract information from a limited number of thickness observations. The analyses were designed around 23 test cases comprising both real-world and synthetic glaciers, with each test case comprising a set of 16 different experiments mimicking possible scenarios of data availability. A total of 13 models participated in the experiments.

Read More: Farinotti, D., Brinkerhoff, D.J., Fürst, J.J., Gantayat, P., Gillet-Chaulet, F., Huss, M., Leclercq, P.W., Maurer, H., Morlighem, M., Pandit, A., Rabatel, A., Ramsankaran, R., Reerink, T.J., Robo, E., Rouges, E., Tamre, E., van Pelt, W.J.J., Werder, M.A., Azam, M.F., Li, H., Andreassen, L.M., 2021. Results from the Ice Thickness Models Intercomparison eXperiment Phase 2 (ITMIX2). Front. Earth Sci. 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2020.571923

 

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First online Elmer/Ice beginner's course

The first online Elmer/Ice beginner's course was taking place from November 23 to 27, ElmerIceCourse2020 Zoomwith a self-study preparation week based on instruction videos from 16. to 20. November. In total there were about 40 people from all over the world enrolled in this course, which was free of charge and supported by IGE, Grenoble and CSC in Espoo. The wide spread of timezones of the participants implied that every Zoom online session from the morning was repeated in the evening. The material (slides, videos and input files) is  still accessible via the course page and of course can be further used as reference or self-study material.

Besides some constructive suggestions on how to improve this course format, the feedback to the course was generally positive. A few quotes from the feedback form:

Thank you for the efforts and for a very well designed introduction course!

Thank you, you guys are the best!

I would like to thank you for the entire Elmer/Ice team for providing this great opportunity to learn the model. This was my first time with Elmer/Ice and I have found the model very important and useful in my research work. The course was detailed, informative and well structured. The training session was interactive and encouraged me to use the model in my research work. I am motivated to use the model in my current and future research.

Thank you very much for taking the time to run this course. It was fantastic to get an introduction to Elmer and to realise the possibilities it presents. I look forward to beginning to use Elmer in the near future.

 Encouraged by these positive reactions, the Elmer/Ice team is considering to provide courses of the same online format also in the post-pandemic future.

Elmer/Ice, Training

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Mapping the age of ice of Gauligletscher combining surface radionuclide contamination and ice flow modeling

jouvet2020In the 1950s and '60s, specific radionuclides were released into the atmosphere as a result of nuclear weapons testing. This radioactive fallout left its signature on the accumulated layers of glaciers worldwide, thus providing a tracer for ice particles traveling within the gravitational ice flow and being released into the ablation zone. For surface ice dating purposes, we analyze here the Plutonium and Uranium activity in more than 200 ice samples collected at the surface of Gauligletscher, Switzerland, and successfully identify the isochronal lines from 1960 and 1963. Hence this information is used to fine-tune an ice flow/mass balance model (Elmer/Ice), and to accurately map the age of the entire glacier ice (see picture). As an additional result, our results show that an airplane which crash-landed on the Gauligletscher in 1946 will likely soon be released from the ice close to the place where pieces have emerged in recent years, thus permitting the prognosis given in an earlier model to be revised considerably.

Read more: Jouvet G., S. Röllin, H. Sahli, J. Corcho, L. Gnägi, L. Compagno, D. Sidler, M. Schwikowski, A. Bauder and M. Funk, 2020. Mapping the age of ice of Gauligletscher combining surface radionuclide contamination and ice flow modeling, The Cryosphere, 14, 4233–4251, doi:10.5194/tc-14-4233-2020

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