Understanding the Response of Greenland's Marine Terminating Glaciers to Oceanic and Atmospheric Forcing

Description:

The widespread retreat and speedup of marine-terminating outlet glaciers in Greenland over the past two decades has led to a doubling of the ice sheet’s contribution to sea level rise and increased the freshwater input to the North Atlantic. Its coincidence with a period of oceanic and atmospheric warming suggests a common climate driver. Yet the forcings and mechanisms behind these dynamic responses are poorly understood and either missing or crudely parameterized in climate and ice sheet models. Progress on this complex topic requires a collaborative, international, cross-disciplinary and multi-faceted approach.

With this workshop, we seek to bring together oceanographers, glaciologists, atmospheric and climate scientists, including observationalists, modelers, and theoreticians, working on all aspects of this problem. A whitepaper initiated by the US CLIVAR Working Group on GReenland Ice Sheet Ocean interactions (GRISO) serves as background to this workshop.

Organizing Committee:

F. Straneo (WHOI, USA); P. Heimbach (MIT, USA); O. Sergienko (GFDL, USA); G. Catania (U. Texas, USA); G. Hamilton (U. Maine, USA); S. Price (LANL, USA)

Scientific Steering Committee*:

R. Bindschadler (NASA/GSFC); A. Jenkins (BAS, UK); H. Johnson (Oxford U., UK); I. Joughin (APL-UW, USA); D. Menemenlis (JPL/Caltech, USA); J. Mortensen (GINR, Greenland); R. Motyka (U. Alaska, USA); L. Padman (ESR, USA); D. Roberts (U. Durham, UK); A. Vieli (U. Durham, UK); D. van As (GEUS, DK)

*includes Organizing Committee Members