PhD defence: Roughish ice, snow and turbulent heat fluxes on the Greenland ice sheet

This research studies the contribution of the Greenland ice sheet to global sea level rise. In this thesis, new methods are developed to better measure and simulate the surface melt on the Greenland ice sheet.

A process not well understood is the turbulent mixing (or sensible heat flux), and how much it contributes to surface melt. In this research, a novel instrumental method is developed and applied to measure the impact of turbulent mixing on surface melt.

Another process not well known, is how the roughness of the ice sheet influences the amount of sensible heat. For this purpose, novel methods are developed which allow to estimate the roughness of the surface from either UAV or satellite measurements.

Finally, climate model simulations are performed with an improved roughness of the surface, which are found to better simulate the amount of surface melt.

The results from this thesis can be used to reduce the uncertainty in future projections of Greenland ice sheet mass loss, and subsequent sea-level rise.