Collaborative Research: Explosive Ice-Shelf Disintegration

该奖项支持一个项目，以检查和测试爆炸性冰架解体的三步过程模型，该模型是在最近的2008年和2009年威尔金斯冰架事件之后出现的。该模型的条件是夏季融水驱动的自由地表水的增加，加上地表和基底裂缝密度的增长，这是满足“有利条件”所必需的。一旦相遇，崩溃将通过三个步骤进行：（第一步），从冰架向海的冰锋处分裂出一个由平板状冰山组成的“领先方阵”，在其尾迹中形成一个被称为“舞坑”的区域（位于方阵和完整冰架边缘之间），在那里海洋表面重力波被反射（一个快速的机械激活过程）（第2步）和一个快速的，冰山倾覆和“搅坑”内破碎将重力势能失控地转化为海浪能，导致进一步的波浪崩解、倾覆和破碎（步骤3）。该项目将由一个多学科团队进行，并将侧重于理论模型的开发、数值方法的开发和应用以及新的观察结果。该项目将参与物理系本科生研究经验计划和夏季研究早期识别计划（SR-EIP），该计划旨在促进未被充分代表的少数民族参与研究。项目负责人、博士后学者、研究生和无资助的参与者将开发一个研究生水平的研讨会/教程，介绍冰川学的先进计算方法。一名博士后和研究生将在项目期间接受新的研究技术培训。

This award supports a project to examine and test a 3-step process model for explosive ice-shelf disintegration that emerged in the wake of the recent 2008 and 2009 events of the Wilkins Ice Shelf. The model is conditioned on Summer melt-driven increase in free-surface water coupled with surface and basal crevasse density growth necessary to satisfy an "enabling condition". Once met, the collapse proceeds through three steps: (Step 1), calving of a "leading phalanx" of tabular icebergs from the seaward ice front of the ice shelf which creates in its wake a region, called a "mosh pit" (located between the phalanx and the edge of the intact ice shelf), where ocean surface-gravity waves are trapped by reflection (a fast mechanically enabled process), (Step 2), and a rapid, runaway conversion of gravitational potential energy into ocean-wave energy by iceberg capsize and fragmentation within the "mosh pit" which leads to further wave-induced calving, capsize and fragmentation (Step 3). The project will be conducted by a multidisciplinary team and will focus on theoretical model development, numerical method development and application and new observations. The project will participate in both the Research Experience for Undergraduates program in the Physics Department and the Summer Research Early Identification Program (SR-EIP) that fosters participation in research by underrepresented minorities. The PIs, postdoctoral scholar, graduate students and unfunded participants will develop a graduate-level seminar/tutorial to introduce advanced computational methods to glaciology. A postdoctoral scholar and graduate student will be trained in new research techniques during the project.