Ocean dynamics and the Latitude of the Ice Edge

Because of its high reflectivity and insulating effect on oceans, sea ice has a large impact on climate. The area occupied by sea ice is therefore a topic of interest in a wide range of oceanic and atmospheric studies.

Interpretation of observations and complex numerical models is often made difficult by the lack of a compact theoretical framework describing the dynamics of the sea ice area on the large scale. Such a tool would be an extremely valuable tool to the climate community.

The basis of this PhD is to take advantage of a simple property of the sea ice geometry: for many purposes, knowledge of the latitude of the sea ice edge gives an accurate measure of the sea ice area. However, the physics of the sea ice edge, and notably its interaction with the ocean, are more easily described than in the case of area.

The goals of this PhD are: 1) develop an idealized system of equations describing the location of the ice edge, improving on previous work by better accounting for the interaction with the ocean (aided by the analysis of observations and idealized simulations to identify key processes) and 2) apply this mathematical framework to the analysis of simulations of future and past climates.

This project is an opportunity for a student with a maths or physics degree to apply his/her skills to a climate science question.

The successful applicant will acquire extended knowledge of the physics of sea ice, atmosphere and ocean, fluid dynamics, skills in numerical modeling and computing.