THETIS: Thetis modeling of the Heterogenous Environment beneath Thwaites Ice Shelf

目前南极洲斯韦茨冰川的迅速融化及其对海平面上升的持续贡献引起了广泛的社会关注，因为它们有可能影响全球沿海社区。由于这座冰川及其邻近地区的最终崩塌，海平面上升了三米以上，可能会导致数百万人流离失所。这项研究的结果将有助于通过结合对冰川的观测和计算机建模来预测这一关键冰川的未来行为。这些结果还将提高估计该冰川未来海平面贡献的能力，并有助于国际Thwaites冰川合作的更广泛努力，以更好地了解未来的社会影响。此外，该项目还将为博士后学者的培训和职业发展做出贡献。该项目将开发南极洲斯韦茨冰架周围和下方海洋的计算模型。该项目将开发Thetis，这是一种非结构网格、不连续的Galerkin有限元海洋模型，用于模拟冰川下冰架下海洋洞穴内的海洋循环。非结构化网格将允许提高重要区域的分辨率，如接地区和具有复杂沿海几何形状的区域，有效地将计算资源集中在最需要它们的地方。非结构化网格还将允许平滑地表示海岸、海床和冰基几何图形，这是对常用结构化网格模型的阶梯式边界的改进。为该项目开发的模型不仅将是Thwaites冰川海洋洞穴最详细的模型，还将代表着对海洋-冰层相互作用的总体建模向前迈进了一步。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The current, rapid melting of Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica and its ongoing contribution to sea-level rise are of broad societal concern for their potential to impact coastal communities around the globe. Sea-level rise more than three meters due to the eventual collapse of this glacier and its neighbors could displace millions. The results of this research will help to project the future behavior of this critical glacier by combining observations and computer modeling of the glacier. The results will also advance the ability to estimate the future sea-level contribution of this glacier and contribute to the broader effort of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration to provide better insight into future societal impacts. In addition, this project will contribute to the training and career development of a postdoctoral scholar.This project will develop a computational model of the ocean around and beneath the Thwaites Glacier Ice Shelf in Antarctica. The project will develop Thetis, an unstructured-mesh, discontinuous Galerkin finite-element ocean model to simulate ocean circulation within the glacier sub-ice-shelf ocean cavity. The unstructured mesh will allow for increased resolution in important regions, such as the grounding zone, and regions with complex coastal geometry, effectively concentrating computational resources where they are needed most. The unstructured mesh will also allow for smooth representations of coastal, seabed, and ice-base geometry, an improvement over the stair-step style boundaries of commonly used structured mesh models. The model developed for this project will not only be the most detailed model of the Thwaites Glacier ocean cavity, it will also represent a step forward for modeling of ocean-ice interaction in general.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.