Ice sheet and glacier stability in a warming world: Projecting future iceberg and sea level risks via rapid modelling and satellite image analysis

该奖学金将改变我们对两极冰盖和冰川如何影响未来海平面变化的理解，并预测未来影响这些地区人民，企业和政府的冰山风险。基于我最近的工作（莱亚，2018），大量的云计算资源将用于促进对每天生成的北极和南极卫星图像的自动化分析。这是第一次进行如此规模的分析，否则使用当前的冰川监测方法是无法实现的。使用这种实时更新的分析结果，新的基于物理和基于经验的机器学习模型将提供第一个全球冰川稳定性评估和监测框架。随着北极海冰减少和两极经历重大环境变化，这将大大改善基础设施、工业项目和安全的短期（<1年）和长期（十年）计划。这些因素对英国尤其重要，因为它影响：-英国在南极洲和南大洋管理领土的环境和安全。英国企业对极地地区未来项目的可行性做出明智的决定，冰山对港口，钻井平台和海底管道等航运和基础设施构成重大危险。西北和东北通道贸易航线的预期开通，为英国提供了大幅减少航运长度和环境影响的商业机会。由于冰川突然退缩和冰山风险的变化，这些航线的未来可行性将对英国未来在太平洋和大西洋之间的供应链产生重大影响。联合国政府间气候变化专门委员会强调，海洋终端冰缘的稳定性是全球海平面变化预测的主要不确定性，并延伸到冰山风险。实现全球冰川稳定性评估的现有障碍是：-目前的数据收集方法（即使是单个冰川）可能非常耗时。冰川稳定性的数值模型需要相当大的计算能力，这限制了研究人员只能探索少数几个潜在的未来情景，因此，在每一个极地的100 - 1000个冰川中，只有少数几个得到了详细的研究，这使得我们对未来冰川和冰盖稳定性的了解非常不完整，也没有受到很好的限制。该奖学金的创新形象和稳定性分析将直接应对这些挑战。确保这些新发现产生影响是该奖学金的一个关键目标。来自项目合作伙伴的支持将允许与英国政府就外交和联邦事务部最近出版的“超越冰：英国对北极的政策”（2018年）中强调的目标进行实质性且难以实现的参与，包括：预测全球影响力;保护人民和环境;促进繁荣。横跨奖学金的三个利益相关者活动也将使英国企业能够直接突出他们的主要关切，并帮助指导数据产品的生成。这些项目旨在让英国企业对极地地区正在进行的和未来的项目的可行性做出更明智的决策。与关键地点基础设施相关的明智决策也符合英国未来贸易路线成功发展的长期利益。为此，在格陵兰政府的地球科学咨询公司（Asiaq Greenland Survey）工作三个月，并定期前往格陵兰最大的城市和深水港努克进行实地考察，这将使决策者和业界能够在西北航道航运路线未来发展的关键位置定期接触。

This fellowship will transform our understanding of how the ice sheets and glaciers at both poles will contribute to future sea level change, and anticipate future iceberg risks impacting the people, businesses and governments in these regions. Building on my recent work (Lea, 2018), significant cloud computing resources will be used to facilitate automated analysis of the unprecedented volume of Arctic and Antarctic satellite imagery that is generated every day. This is the first time that analysis at such scales will be undertaken, and would be otherwise unachievable using current glacier monitoring approaches.Using results from this real-time updated analysis, a combination of new physically based and empirically based machine learning models will provide the first global assessment of glacier stability and framework to monitor this. This will allow significant improvements to short (<1 year) and long term (decadal) plans for infrastructure, industry projects and security as Arctic sea ice declines and both poles undergo major environmental changes. These factors are especially important for the UK as it impacts:- The environment and security of UK administered territories in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.- UK business making informed decisions on future project viability in polar regions, where icebergs pose a major hazard to shipping and infrastructure such as ports, rigs and subsea pipelines.- The anticipated opening of the Northwest and Northeast Passage trade routes, offering UK business opportunities to significantly reduce the length and environmental impact of shipping. The future viability of these routes due to sudden glacier retreat and changing iceberg risks will have major implications for future UK supply chains between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have highlighted that the stability of marine terminating ice margins is a major uncertainty in global sea level change projections, and by extension iceberg risk. The existing barriers to achieving a global assessment of glacier stability are that:- Current approaches to data collection (even for individual glaciers) can be extremely time intensive.- The considerable computational power required by numerical models of glacier stability limits researchers to exploring only a few potential future scenarios.Consequently only a handful of the 100s-1000s of these glaciers at each pole have been studied in detail, leaving our knowledge of future glacier and ice sheet stability woefully incomplete and poorly constrained. This fellowship's innovative image and stability analyses will directly address these challenges.Ensuring that these novel findings have impact is built in as a key objective of this fellowship. Support from project partners will allow substantial and rarely achievable levels of engagement with the UK Government on objectives highlighted in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's recent publication 'Beyond the Ice: UK policy towards the Arctic' (2018), including: Projecting global influence; Protecting people and the environment; and Promoting prosperity. Three stakeholder events spanning the fellowship will also allow UK business to directly highlight their key concerns and help direct the generation of data products. These will be designed to allow UK business to make better informed decisions on the viability of ongoing and future projects in the polar regions.Informed decision making relating to infrastructure at key locations is also in the UK's long term interest for the successful development of future trade routes. To this end, a three month placement at the Greenland Government's geoscience consultancy (Asiaq Greenland Survey) and regular trips as part of fieldwork to Greenland's largest city and deepwater port, Nuuk, will allow regular engagement with policymakers and industry at a pivotal location for the future development of the Northwest Passage shipping route.