What is driving rapid changes in Canadian Arctic sea ice thickness? (NERC GW4+ DTP Projects 2018-19)

The overarching aim of the project is to examine the causes and potential implications of dramatic asymmetrical trends in Baffin Bay sea ice thickness observed over the past two decades. This will encompass the following objectives:

1. To verify recent trends in Baffin Bay sea ice thickness using complimentary data from Operation Icebridge, ice-profiling moorings, satellite altimetry etc.
2. To examine whether changes in: (i) the circulation patterns and temperature of the ocean mixed layer, (ii) Western Arctic climate, and/or (iii) freshwater fluxes from the Greenland Ice Sheet, have triggered these observed shifts in sea ice thickness.
3. To predict how the Baffin Bay sea ice cover will develop over the coming decades and the implications of this on Western Arctic climate, in particular melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

The student will benefit from a strong international collaboration between scientists in the UK and Greenland/Denmark. Each partner will supervise the student’s work on separate observational datasets: sea ice (Landy), freshwater fluxes (Bamber), oceanography (Rysgaard);
in addition to sea ice-climate modelling (Screen). The student will use advanced statistical methods for integrating and comparing observational datasets, and state-of-the-art models for understanding sensitivity and making future predictions. There may be an opportunity for fieldwork to collect supplementary oceanographic observations off Western Greenland in 2018 or 2019.