We are currently advertising four fully-funded PhD positions at Utrecht University and TU Delft within the framework of our HiRISE project, which focuses on high-resolution remote sensing and modelling approach for assessing ice shelf instability across Antarctica:
1. Antarctic Ice Shelf Melt and Hydrology (TU Delft)
The objective of this PhD project is to develop and provide novel high-resolution remote sensing observations of surface conditions related to melt to better understand how, where, and how much surface meltwater is formed and where it goes. Within the project you will first combine various remote sensing data sets (optical, (in)SAR, scatterometers) related to melt, albedo and hydrology to get high-resolution estimates of melt and hydrology across all Antarctic ice shelves. Second, you will run offline models (snowmodels, surface energy models, hydrological models) to determine the relative importance of the atmospheric drivers (e.g. warming, changes in foehn/katabatic winds), hydrological conditions and the feedback processes (e.g. melt-albedo feedback) on the satellite observed melt.
2. Remote Sensing of Ice Shelf Firn Processes (TU Delft)
In this project, the successful applicant will combine various remote sensing data sets, such as backscatter and brightness temperature from Sentinel-1, Sentinel-3, CryoSat-2 and ASCAT, AMSR-E/AMSR2, to study changes in the firn layer. This will be compared to the output of a regional firn model, which you will couple to a snow microwave radiative transfer model to simulate the interaction of electromagnetic waves with the snowpack based on its physical properties. The multi-satellite set of observations and the a-prior knowledge of the microwave scattering sensitivity to snowpack properties from the coupled model will then be used to constrain the firn model in a Bayesian approach.
3. Remote sensing of ice shelf thinning (IMAU - Utrecht University)
In this project, you will combine various remote sensing data sets, such as altimetry measurements (CryoSat-2, Sentinel-3 and ICESat-2) and stereoscopic digital elevation models (e.g. Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica) to obtain time series of ice shelf thinning at high temporal and spatial resolution. These estimates will be combined with output from a regional climate model to account for changes in snowpack thickness, to isolate basal melt features, melt channel geometry and growth, grounding line migration and frontal iceberg. Furthermore, land-ice elevation changes will also be produced near the grounding zone to monitor the dynamic response of the ice sheet to changes in the ice shelf thickness.
4. Modelling water in the firn of Antarctic Ice Shelves (IMAU - Utrecht University)
In this project, you will first test and implement a novel 1D water percolation model in the polar version of the state-of-the-art regional climate model RACMO2. The second step is to develop and implement a horizontal water flow routine in RACMO2. The updated and evaluated model will be used to estimate the contemporary and future presence of melt water on Antarctic ice shelves for different warming scenarios and hence identify which ice shelves will become potentially unstable. You will collaborate closely with partners at e.g. IMAU and TUD, who will provide remotely sensed and in-situ observations of water and other surface properties of Antarctic ice shelves.
These positions are part of the HiRISE project, a collaboration between Researchers at Utrecht University, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands Royal Meteorological Institute (KNMI), Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) and Université Libre de Bruxelles, and funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). The project combines field measurements, satellite data and climate models to chart the current state of Antarctica's ice shelves with high resolution and accuracy and reduce the uncertainty in projections of sea level rise.
Many thanks,
Bert Wouters and Stef Lhermitte
