Home Page of Thomas Zwinger

Ice Sheet Simulations

From the continuum mechanical point of view, ice sheet models include thermodynamics, multi-phase fluid mechanics with non-Newtonian rheology and free surface. Due to the high viscosity of ice, the dynamics is governed by the Stokes equations. Since the lithosphere below the bedrock is displaced by the overburden, ice sheet simulation in general also include Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI).

The other important aspect in ice sheet modeling is the external forcing. Precipitation and surface temperature have to be provided either from diagnostic or prognostic climate models. Hence, Glaciology is tightly linked to the scientific field of Climatology (and perhaps in a not so dependent way vice versa).

Based on the open source Finite Element Method (FEM) based code Elmer during the recent years a model for simulating thermo-mechanically coupled ice flow has been developed with contributions of/collaboration with the following partners:

• Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l'Environnement (ILTS), Grenoble, France
• Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido Univ., Sapporo, Japan
• British Antarctic Survey (BAS), Cambridge, United Kingdom
• Arctic Centre, Univ. Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland

There is a useful Wiki page on the elmerfem.org for Glaciological applications with Elmer

In cooperation with Ralf Greve we ported his ice sheet model SICOPOLIS in order to simulate the glaciation of Eurasia. The simulations as well as the data preparation for the climatological input have been made by my colleague Pirjo-Leena Forsström. Special focus in this project was the glaciation of the Fennoscandian area around the Last Glaciation maximum (LGM), about 20 thousand years before present.

The picture (click for magnification) shows the elevation, the two-dimensional filled contours of the ice extent (red line indicates the reconstructed extent from the QUEENS project), the ice elevation with iso-lines and a three-dimensional view of the ice sheet (from upper left to lower right).

Material found on this page is for private and academic use only!