Funded PhD Studentship: DTC GEO 26 - Mapping the mechanical strength of the Larsen C ice shelf through satellite data assimilation

Swansea University is a UK top 30 institution for research excellence (Research Excellence Framework 2014), and has been named Welsh University of the Year 2017 by The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide.

Swansea Science DTC is a community committed to undertaking world-class research that has a positive impact globally and we have a fully-funded PhD scholarship for 2017/2018 entry.

We are recognised as one of the foremost global centres for teaching and research in human and physical geography. In the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) Geography at Swansea was ranked joint 9th in the UK for research impact and 11th in the UK for research environment. Our research environment (how the Department supports research staff and students) and the impact of our research (its value to society) were both judged to be 100% world leading or internationally excellent.

Our internationally active research staff and large community of postgraduate researchers create a dynamic and inspirational environment in which to study. You will also benefit from our exceptional facilities, including: a powerful workstation for all Earth Observation postgraduates; ‘Blue Ice 2’ supercomputer, containing 600 cores and 1.2TB memory distributed over 50 nodes with 33TB data storage, used mainly for climate and glaciological modelling; specialist laboratory suites for stable isotope ratio analysis; tree ring analysis; extraction and identification of organic compounds; pollen extraction and analysis; rainfall simulation; tephra analysis; soil and sediment characterisation.

Description of Project:

The European Space Agency Sentinel-1 satellites, launched in 2014 and 2016, reveal Antarctic ice dynamics at high resolution throughout the year and have been used to track the weekly progress of a now 200km long rift across the Larsen C ice shelf. Although there is a well established theory of stress concentration and crack propagation, it is complicated by spatial variation in the structure of ice shelves, which comprise a mixture of land ice and marine ice. The studentship will aim to assimilate Sentinel-1 observations into an ice shelf model, mapping the pattern of mechanical strength of the Larsen C ice shelf to provide insight into its near future resilience or fragility.