North Greenland Glacier-Ocean Interactions: advancing knowledge of marine ice margins to better constrain future sea-level rise

While continued ice loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet during the 21st century now is proposed to be a certainty (IPCC report 2022, Working Group 2), quantifications of ice loss and sea-level rise are afflicted with large uncertainty stemming mainly from the lack of in-situ observations. This is hampering data-validated parameterizations of numerical models used in predicting future sea-level scenarios.

This project will focus on the calving marine outlet glaciers in poorly-known regions of northern Greenland that are of key importance for future sea-level rise: The project goals are toadvance knowledge on the past, contemporary and future behavior of N-GrIS marine terminating outlet glaciers by acquiring data on critical glacier-ocean interaction processes using a multi-platform approach including maritime robots , improve numerical ice and ocean models using the above-mentioned data to better constrain predictions of the stability of N-GrIS floating ice tongues and consequently the future sea-level rise.This project is an integral part of the North Greenland Earth-Ocean-Ecosystem Observatory (GEOEO) research theme endorsed by the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat (SPRS) and co-lead by the PIs of this project.

It builds on previous successful expeditions with Icebreaker Oden to the northern Greenland margin.

With the GEOEO North of Greenland 2024 expedition to be organized by SPRS, we target previously completely unsurveyed territory.