Portable laboratory for the study of ice-oceans interactions

2007年，政府间气候变化专门委员会第四次评估认识到，限制公众根据世界冰块变化预测未来海平面变化的主要因素是对出口冰川的复杂行为及其易受海洋和大气变暖影响的认识不足。该实验室将通过提供对a)冰-海洋相互作用在出口冰川系统中的作用及其对供养它们的冰块的质量平衡的影响，以及b)区域水分和温度变化对冰川健康的作用的新的见解，来解决其中的一些不确定性。该设备将用于在实地收集一系列冰川学和海洋学数据，包括对冰运动、冰川质量平衡、冰锋融化、融水径流、沉积物产生和海水循环的实物测量，以及海底沉积物通量和保存的冰川活动记录的海底剖面。这项研究将利用巴塔哥尼亚、格陵兰、加拿大北极和不列颠哥伦比亚省/阿拉斯加沿海的温带和极地冰川，深入了解影响世界各地海洋终止冰块稳定性的过程，并预测它们在气候变暖时的演变。在接下来的几个世纪里，这些出口冰川的消退将主导全球海平面的上升，但它们的波动只在一定程度上与气候变异性有关，而且仍然知之甚少。

In 2007, the 4th IPCC Assessment recognized that the prime factor limiting public confidence in predicting future changes in sea level from changes in the worlds' ice masses is a poor understanding of the complex behavior of outlet glaciers and of their vulnerability to ocean and atmospheric warming. This laboratory will address some of these uncertainties by providing the means for achieving new insights into a) the role of ice-ocean interactions in outlet glacial systems and their impact on the mass balance of the ice masses that feed them, and b) the role of regional moisture and temperature variability on glacier health. The equipment will be used to collect a range of glaciologic and oceanographic data in the field, including physical measurements of ice motion, glacier mass balance, ice front melting, meltwater runoff, sediment production and seawater circulation, as well as sub-bottom profiles of the seabed for sediment fluxes and the preserved record of glacial activity. This research will take advantage of temperate and polar glaciers in Patagonia, Greenland, the Canadian Arctic and coastal British Columbia/Alaska, to generate insight likely to improve understanding of the processes that affect the stability of ice masses terminating in the sea worldwide, and to predict their evolution in a warmer climate. For the next few centuries, the retreat of these outlet glaciers will dominate global sea-level rise, and yet their fluctuations are only partly related to climate variability, and remain poorly understood.