U.S.-Sweden Cooperative Research: Relation between Water Input, Water Pressure, Surface Speed and Basal Till Deformation

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This two-year award supports collaborative research in polar glaciology between Roger LeB. Hooke of the University of Minnesota and Wibjorn Karlen of the University of Stockholm. The investigators will conduct research on Storglaciaren, a small valley glacier in northern Sweden. Their principal objective is to develop a global model for predicting glacier motion from meteorological data. Dr. Hooke and his team, including an advanced graduate student and postdoctoral researcher, will spend several months in the field to work on three interrelated projects with their Swedish counterparts: (1) a water input model for the glacier, (2) studies of the relation between glacier velocity and water pressure, and (3) subglacier till rheology. Dr. Hooke brings to this collaboration his extensive expertise in glacier dynamics and hydrology. This is complemented by Dr. Karlen's work on Holocene climate changes, glacial and deglacial chronology. Both investigators are very familiar with Storglaciaren, the field site in Sweden and have been collecting data in this region for several years. Data from Storglaciaren will contribute to overall global studies on glaciology. In particular, the study on the rheology of basal till could be applied to other glacial areas including the fast-flowing ice streams of the Antarctica. These investigations will also be useful to modelers studying climate change effects on present day ice masses.