CDI-Type II: Dynamics of Ice Sheets: Advanced Simulation Models, Large-Scale Data Inversion, and Quantification of Uncertainty in Sea Level Rise Projections

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。目前使用的简化冰盖模型无法解释流动转变的动力学，而流动转变是冰盖如何响应环境变化的关键。正是这些地区正在迅速发生变化。令人担忧的是，目前处于海平面以下的格陵兰岛和南极冰盖的稳定部分可能会失去控制，使海平面上升数米。完整的冰盖质量、动量和能量方程的高保真度模型有可能解决水流转换问题，从而大大改善海平面上升的预测。此外，该项目组的研究人员最近在南极西部冰盖完成了广泛的航空地球物理调查，其中包括穿冰雷达和激光测高以及重力和磁场观测。这些调查和其他调查提供了关键的观测数据，从中可以推断出高保真冰盖模型的不确定流变参数和边界条件。然而，在这一科学议程得以实施之前，必须克服多方面的建模和计算挑战。该团队提出了一条基于计算思维创新和计算思维创新应用的新研究路径，以解决这些挑战，并将促进冰川学领域的范式转变，首次系统地量化冰盖动力学预测中的不确定性。就更广泛的影响而言，该项目将涉及一个强有力的教育和推广计划，这与具有如此广泛社会影响的项目相适应。特别是，该团队将：(1)为社区冰盖模型（CISM）倡议贡献工作，以支持评估各种冰盖崩塌情景的不确定性和可能性以及持续气候变化下海平面突然响应的努力。(2)在开源许可下发布本项目开发的所有代码，不仅包括新的冰盖模拟器，还包括核心使能技术代码（并行AMR，不确定性量化，逆求解器），从而使更广泛的计算科学家社区受益，他们致力于冰河学以外的更广泛的问题。(3)通过一个易于使用的交互式前端来增强Wired Antarctica网站，该前端可以访问一系列冰盖模拟器。这个门户网站是由共同负责人Ginny Catania开发的，目的是为K-12学生提供有关南极洲和南极研究的教育和推广工作。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). Simplified ice sheet models in current use are incapable of accounting for the dynamics of flow transitions that are key to how ice sheets respond to environmental change. It is these regions that are now rapidly changing. The concern is that currently stable portions of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets that are grounded below sea level could become unhinged and raise sea level by many meters. High fidelity models of the full mass, momentum, and energy equations for ice sheets have the potential to resolve flow transitions, leading to greatly improved predictions of sea level rise. Moreover, extensive airborne geophysical surveys in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet incorporating ice penetrating radar and laser altimetry as well as gravity and magnetic observations have recently been completed by researchers from this project team. These and other surveys provide the crucial observational data from which uncertain rheological parameters and boundary conditions for high fidelity ice sheet models may be inferred. However, manifold modeling and computational challenges must be overcome before this scientific agenda can be pursued. The team proposes a a new research path founded on innovations in computational thinking and innovative uses of computational thinking that addresses these challenges and will catalyze a paradigm shift in the field of glaciology, leading for the first time to systematically quantified uncertainties in predictions of ice sheet dynamics. In terms of broader impacts, the project will involve a robust program of education and outreach, as befits a project with such broad societal impacts. In particular, the team will: (1) Contribute the work to the Community Ice Sheet Model (CISM) initiative in support of efforts to evaluating uncertainties and likelihoods of various ice sheet collapse scenarios and the abrupt sea level response with ongoing climate change. (2) Release all codes developed in this project under open- source licenses, not only the new ice sheet simulator, but also the core enabling technology codes (parallel AMR, uncertainty quantification, inverse solvers), thus benefiting a much broader community of computational scientists working on a much wider set of problems beyond glaciology. (3) Enhance the Wired Antarctica website with an easy-to-use interactive front end that accesses a family of ice sheet simulators. This portal was developed by co-PI Ginny Catania as an education and outreach effort on Antarctica and Antarctic research for K-12 students.