Sea Level Rise Seminar: 2021-07-27, Matt Hoffman

Sea Level Rise Seminar 2021-07-27
Speaker: Matt Hoffman
Title: From ice sheets to coast: Towards a unified treatment of sea level in E3SM

Abstract: Sea-level change is a fundamental impact of climate change, yet climate models are currently unable to calculate sea level directly. Global mean sea level varies through the barystatic sources of ice sheet, glacier, and terrestrial water storage mass changes, as well as ocean steric changes from ocean warming, and to a lesser extent freshening. Additionally, sea level varies regionally due to the spatial distribution of the above processes and their interactions with solid Earth gravitational, deformational, and rotational changes. A goal of the US Department of Energy’s Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) is to fully incorporate all of these processes to allow fully consistent sea-level projections as a model output. I will report on our progress towards this goal, focusing primarily on recent improvements in modeling the ice-sheet component, which is the largest uncertainty in sea-level projections. Examples from Greenland and Antarctica show the importance of resolving the key physical processes of iceberg calving, subglacial hydrology, and glacial isostatic adjustment. I will also highlight the representation of ice-shelf cavities and ice-shelf basal melt in E3SM’s ocean component and the challenges ice-shelf-melt tipping points present in a global, coupled model. Finally, I will summarize plans for a new effort developing the sea-level-enabled version of E3SM.

Видео Sea Level Rise Seminar: 2021-07-27, Matt Hoffman канала NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies