You will simulate the evolution of climate and ice sheets during the Last Interglacial period to understand why sea levels were 6-9 m higher than today. This will help constrain the worst-case scenarios for future sea level rise as part of the SMB-Gen project.
The last time sea levels were higher than today was during the Last Interglacial period, 120,000 years ago, when ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica were smaller. How much of this higher sea level was due to surface melt in Greenland versus runaway retreat of Antarctic glaciers that flow out to the sea. Understanding these effects is crucial for accurately projecting future sea level rise. Combining observations and Climate-Ice-sheet modelling of this period with novel Artificial Intelligence techniques can help us do this.
Sea levels during the Last Interglacial were still responding to changes in ice sheets that had occurred during the warming period that preceded, the Penultimate Deglaciation (∼ 140–130 thousand years ago). Yet we know very little about the size and evolution of ice sheets during the Penultimate Deglaciation, because geological data only offer us a partial record of events with substantial uncertainties. Exciting new developments in numerical modelling and Artificial Intelligence offers us the possibility to fill in the gaps in the observational records and test hypotheses on the cause of abrupt climate and sea level changes.
The aim of this project is to understand the evolution of ice sheets and climate during the Penultimate Deglaciation and Last Interglacial using numerical modelling of the climate and ice sheets.
You will use a complex yet fast coupled climate-ice sheet model FAMOUS-ice (including the flagship UK ice sheet model BISICLES) on high performance computers coupled with novel artificial intelligence methods developed within the SMB-Gen project. The evolution of the climate and ice sheets during these periods will be simulated following the protocols from the international Paleoclimate Model Intercomparison Project. The new simulations of the Penultimate Deglaciation will be compared with existing simulations of the ‘last deglaciation’ (a more recent transition from cold to warm climate) to understand why the two deglaciations were so different from each other. Finally, the results will be linked to future ice sheet evolution through the new artificial intelligence techniques of the SMB-Gen project.
Full project details and how to apply
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