iMechPro
| Ice Microstructure and Mechanics, and their Implications for the Integrity of Climate Proxies in Ice Cores Microestructura y Mecánica del Hielo y sus implicaciones para la integridad de los Proxies Climáticos en Testigos de Hiel | ||
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Glaciers and ice sheets are essential elements of Earths climate system. Their interactions with the environment can have dramatic implications for life on the globe, as demonstrated by their roles in sea-level rise and global warming. Such environmental interactions remain recorded in the ice microstructure, in form of impurities like air bubbles, particles, and other climate proxies buried by subsequent snowfalls. It happens, however, that glaciers and ice sheets flow. |
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| They creep downslope under their own burden,
disrupting the stratigraphy of deepest ice, and consequently destroying the
integrity of their oldest climate records. A precise estimate of this flow is
essential not only for reliable prognoses of sea-level rise, but also for the reconstruction
of disturbed ice-core climate records. For all these reasons, glaciologists
have been struggling to produce ever more sophisticated models of glacier and
ice-sheet flow. Nevertheless, too often these models rely on outdated,
sometimes even dogmatic theories of ice mechanics, which ignore essential
aspects of the microstructure and physical properties of natural ice. In
particular, numerous ice-core and borehole studies have revealed a clear
correlation between microstructure, mechanical properties, and impurities in
natural ice, in form of a multiscale StructureFlowEnvironment Interplay (SFEI).
To date, there exists no holistic model capable of addressing all aspects of
the SFEI in natural ice. The objective of iMechPro is to help correcting this
flaw, through a systematic study of the evolving interactions among
microstructure, impurities, and mechanics of natural ice. This project involves
advanced optical microscopy and mechanical tests of natural ice at the
IzotzaLab, the novel low-temperature laboratory at BC3, combined with
interpretation of field data, digital image analysis of new and already
existing micrographs, conceptual and mathematical modelling. Ice samples, field
data, stratigraphy records, and micrographs will be available from diverse
sites, including Antarctica, Greenland, the Pyrenees, and possibly also the
Alps, Patagonia, Alaska, and Siberia, therefore covering a wide range of ice
varieties and climatic conditions. The results from iMechPro shall pave the way
to a new generation of glacier and ice-sheet flow models, by considering all
deformation mechanisms and microstructural processes taking place in natural
ice, combined with realistic descriptions of climate proxy formation and decay.
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Start date: 2019-01-01 |
End date:2021-12-31 |
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Call:Proyectos de I+D+i «Retos investigación» correspondientes al Programa Estatal de I+D+i Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad, CONVOCATORIA 2018 |
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Key people involved in BC3: |
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| SERGIO FARIA SANTOS PATRICIA MUÑOZ MARZAGON MARIA SANTOLARIA OTIN |
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Proyecto financiado por el Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades y la Agencia Estatal de Investigación con el nº exp: RTI2018-100696-B-I00 |
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