Authors:

Henry Axon

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About Paper:

Under Climate Variability Mass loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets contributes to sea level rise, and the rate of mass loss has accelerated in recent decades. Since 2003, the Greenland ice sheet has been losing approximately 200 billion tons of ice per year, while the Antarctic ice sheet has been losing around 118 billion tons per year. In addition to changes in melt and snowfall on the ice surface, climate variations also affect ice-sheet mass by driving changes in the flow of glaciers that discharge ice into the ocean. However, changes in ice flow take years to centuries to adjust at different locations across an ice sheet, making the response of a full 86 UNIVERSITY OF OREGON • 2025 UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM TABLE OF CONTENTS ice sheet to climate change complex in space and time. Although the recent trend of shrinking ice sheets is clear, it remains uncertain exactly when and where the ice-flow effects of anthropogenic warming will statistically emerge from the background of natural climate variability. To study the range of variability in glacier responses, we used a numerical model of ice flow and ran large ensembles of simulations that enable a statistical approach to assessing changes in ice flow across climate change scenarios with both variability and trends. We developed a method to determine a signal-to-noise ratio both temporally and spatially across simulated glaciers. This framework can be applied to a wide range of glacial settings and climate scenarios, offering insight into how and where climate-driven trends are likely to emerge in ice flow.

Source:

University of Oregon / 2025

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Co-authors:

Henry Axon