14

Uncertainty Quantification of Bedrock Topography

Supercomputing simulations for uncertainty quantification of bedrock topography

Principal Investigators

Dr. Nicole-Jeanne Schlegel, Dr. Eric Larour, Dr. Ala Khazendar, Dr. Alex Gardner - Sea Level and Ice Group, NASA JPL

Journal Paper

This study focuses on the Antarctic Ice Sheet and its impact on global mean sea-level rise projections. Thwaites Glacier, a crucial glacier in Antarctica, has the potential to contribute significantly to sea-level rise due to its vulnerability to marine ice-sheet instability. The research investigates how the glacier's grounding line migration is influenced by bedrock topography features, particularly when extreme ocean-driven basal melt rates are applied. The study uses the ISSM to assess the uncertainty in sea-level-rise projections caused by uncertainty in current bedrock topography maps. The results indicate that improving spatial and vertical resolutions in bedrock topography could potentially reduce projection uncertainties. The study also identifies regions where the glacier's grounding line is most sensitive to bedrock perturbations. These findings provide valuable insights for future missions aimed at measuring ice-sheet bedrock topography, not only for Thwaites Glacier but for Antarctica as a whole.

This research was conducted for proposing the NASA JPL Deep Ice mission (led by Dr. Ala Khazendar), a dedicated Antarctica satelite with advanced radar telemetry for measuring Antarctica bedrock elevations. Please visit my journal paper for more details.

Other Publications

At my time at NASA JPL, I attended the American Geoscience Union's (AGU) conference three times and gave various presentations in support of the aforementioned journal paper:

AGU 2019 (in person)

AGU 2020 (remote)

AGU 2021 (remote)

JPL 2021

OASIS Mission Proposal

I assisted the Orbiting Arid Subsurfaces and Ice Sheet Sounder (OASIS) mission proposal by creating supercomputing simulations of Western Greenland glacier thermal estimates. Please click

here for more details on the mission.