Research project: iGlass: Using interglacials to assess future sea level scenarios
The iGlass consortium aims to better understand the processes of ice-sheet and sea-level response to climatic forcing, using data from the recent geological past.
Project Overview
Rational
Existing sea-level rise projections do not account for the longer-term changes in global land-based ice volume. Although this ice-sheet contribution to sea-level change develops over decades to centuries, its long-term impact is large and virtually irreversible. It therefore dominates the uncertainty in future sea-level projections.
Aims
- Quantify sea-level variation during interglacial periods (warm periods in between global ice ages)
- Quantify relationships between global ice volume and climatalogical control processes
Approach
- Acquisition of new sea-level data
- Geophysical modelling of vertical land movements and gravitational effects, which cause deviations of regional sea level from the global mean trend
- Investigation of climate/ice-sheet/sea-level interactions using both observations and modelling, to reveal the underlying processes
Outcome
- Synthesis and identification of the processes that control the land-ice component of sea-level rise. This will be used to improve projections of plausible future sea-level change and especially the H++ 'extreme rise' scenario
*Supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
People
University of Southampton
Professor Eelco Rohling
Dr Ivan Haigh (Co-ordinator)
Dr Fiona Hibbert (Research Fellow and Project Manager)
Mrs Felicity Williams
Other members:
NOC-L
Dr Mark Tamisea
Dr Svetlana Jevrejeva
Dr André Düsterhus
British Antarctic Survey
Professor Eric Wolff
Dr Robert Mulvaney
Dr Emilie Capron
Dr Katy Pol
University of Bristol
Professor Tony Payne
Dr Mark Siddall
Dr Dan Lunt
Dr Emma Stone
Dr Joy Singarayer
Mr Matthew Whipple
Durham University
Professor Antony Long
Dr Natasha Barlow
University of Oxford
Professor Gideon Henderson
Dr Karine Wainer
University of York