applicant

Privatdozent Dr. Christoph Garbe 
Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg 
Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing (IWR)

project description

A detailed understanding of the dynamics of polar ice sheets is essential for an accurate climate reconstruction and for the prediction of sea-level fluctuations. Today, the required simulations of ice movement are based on general, empirical material properties of ice. A more accurate description of these properties has to be extracted from the ice micro-structure over the entire ice sheet. This project will provide the necessary data-set for a quantitative parameterization of the entire grain boundary network based on microscopic image sequence analysis. Owning to the complexity and scope of the image data, specific and efficient methods of digital image processing (DIP) have to be developed and verified. Initially, the DIP methodology will be applied to the entire length of the East Antarctic EDML ice core, where the main emphasis will be the data reduction with regard to geometric parameters of grains and the evolution of grain boundaries. One goal is to document the extend to which the depth profiles of these micro-structural parameters are coupled with profiles of tracers and climate proxies in ice cores. The variability of subgrain boundaries with regard to the change of dislocation density represents a first indications of the depth dependence of ice viscosity and thus the rate of deformation. In this project, we will perform a semi-quantitative analysis of this aspect of micro-structural influence on ice dynamics.

DFG-Verfahren: Infrastruktur-Schwerpunktprogramme

Be­tei­lig­te Per­so­nen: Dr. Josef Kipfstuhl; Dr. Dietmar Wagenbach (†)

term from 2011 to 2015