OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
One of the biggest uncertainties in sea-level rise projections results from our incomplete understanding of how surface melting of ice impacts the dynamics of ice sheets and ice shelves. As the atmosphere warms, surface meltwater impacts glaciers by changing the boundary conditions of both ice sheets (on top of solid bedrock) and ice shelves (floating over ocean).
Here, I will discuss (1) how meltwater triggers ice-shelf collapse through “hydrofracture”, which caused the catastrophic disintegration of the Larsen B Ice Shelf, and (2) how meltwater lubricates the interface between ice sheets and bedrock. For part (1) of the talk I will introduce a new approach combining physics-based models and deep learning techniques to provide physical insights into the stability of ice fractures and predict the vulnerability of Antarctic ice shelves to atmosphere warming. For part (2) I discuss a new method combining theory with observations to understand the process governing the uplift of an elastic ice sheet caused by lake drainages, and reveal the seasonal changes of water lubrication between the ice sheet and bedrock.
