Centre for Polar Observation & Modelling

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The Centre for Polar Observation & Modelling (CPOM) is a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Centre of Excellence that studies processes in the Earth's polar environments. [1] CPOM conducts research on sea ice, land ice, and ice sheets using satellite observations and numerical models. [1]

Contents

CPOM comprises research groups and scientists based at the Universities of Leeds, Bristol, Reading, Lancaster, Swansea, Edinburgh, and University College London. [2] CPOM also has partnerships with several other institutions, including the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), the National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO), the European Space Agency, and the Met Office. [3]

History

The Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling was founded in 2000 by Professor Sir Duncan Wingham. [4]

Directors

Professor Sir Wingham was director of CPOM from 2000 to 2005, and his expertise in the study of Earth's ice sheets led to high impact publications on the widespread mass loss on the west Antarctic Ice Sheet. [5] He was also Project Scientist of the European Space Agency's CryoSat mission. [5] He has since been appointed as NERC Chief Executive. [4] Professor Sir Wingham was awarded a Knighthood in 2019 for services to Climate Science. [6]

Professor Sir Wingham was succeeded as CPOM Director by Professor Seymour Laxon. Professor Laxon was an expert on satellite radar altimetry, and his work pioneered the use of satellite altimetry to measure sea ice thickness and surface circulation in polar oceans. [7] This work would lead to the successful development of the European Space Agency's CryoSat mission. [7] Sadly, Professor Laxon died following an accident in 2013. [7]

The role of CPOM Director was succeeded by Professor Andrew Shepherd. [8] Professor Shepherd is an expert in remote observations of the Cryosphere, and is Principal Scientific Advisor to the European Space Agency's CryoSat mission, and co-leader of the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise. [8]

Research

Recent notable publications from CPOM scientists that garnered significant media attention include:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cryosphere</span> Those portions of Earths surface where water is in solid form

The cryosphere is an all-encompassing term for those portions of Earth's surface where water is in solid form, including sea ice, lake ice, river ice, snow cover, glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets, and frozen ground. Thus, there is a wide overlap with the hydrosphere. The cryosphere is an integral part of the global climate system with important linkages and feedbacks generated through its influence on surface energy and moisture fluxes, clouds, precipitation, hydrology, atmospheric and oceanic circulation. Through these feedback processes, the cryosphere plays a significant role in the global climate and in climate model response to global changes. Approximately 10% of the Earth's surface is covered by ice, but this is rapidly decreasing. The term deglaciation describes the retreat of cryospheric features. Cryology is the study of cryospheres.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amundsen Sea</span> Arm of the Southern Ocean

The Amundsen Sea, an arm of the Southern Ocean off Marie Byrd Land in western Antarctica, lies between Cape Flying Fish to the east and Cape Dart on Siple Island to the west. Cape Flying Fish marks the boundary between the Amundsen Sea and the Bellingshausen Sea. West of Cape Dart there is no named marginal sea of the Southern Ocean between the Amundsen and Ross Seas. The Norwegian expedition of 1928–1929 under Captain Nils Larsen named the body of water for the Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen while exploring this area in February 1929.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polar ice cap</span> High-latitude region of an astronomical body with major parts covered in ice

A polar ice cap or polar cap is a high-latitude region of a planet, dwarf planet, or natural satellite that is covered in ice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antarctic ice sheet</span> Earths southern polar ice cap

The Antarctic ice sheet is one of the two polar ice caps of Earth. It covers about 98% of the Antarctic continent and is the largest single mass of ice on Earth, with an average thickness of over 2 kilometers. It covers an area of almost 14 million square kilometres and contains 26.5 million cubic kilometres of ice. A cubic kilometer of ice weighs approximately 0.92 metric gigatonnes, meaning that the ice sheet weighs about 24,380,000 gigatonnes. It holds approximately 61% of all fresh water on Earth, equivalent to about 58 meters of sea level rise if all the ice were above sea level. In East Antarctica, the ice sheet rests on a major land mass, while in West Antarctica the bed can extend to more than 2,500 m below sea level.

CryoSat is an ESA programme to monitor variations in the extent and thickness of polar ice through use of a satellite in low Earth orbit. The information provided about the behaviour of coastal glaciers that drain thinning ice sheets will be key to better predictions of future sea level rise. The CryoSat-1 spacecraft was lost in a launch failure in 2005, however the programme was resumed with the successful launch of a replacement, CryoSat-2, launched on 8 April 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pine Island Glacier</span> Large ice stream, fastest melting glacier in Antarctica

Pine Island Glacier (PIG) is a large ice stream, and the fastest melting glacier in Antarctica, responsible for about 25% of Antarctica's ice loss. The glacier ice streams flow west-northwest along the south side of the Hudson Mountains into Pine Island Bay, Amundsen Sea, Antarctica. It was mapped by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) from surveys and United States Navy (USN) air photos, 1960–66, and named by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) in association with Pine Island Bay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thwaites Glacier</span> Antarctic glacier

Thwaites Glacier, nicknamed the Doomsday Glacier, is an unusually broad and vast Antarctic glacier flowing into Pine Island Bay, part of the Amundsen Sea, east of Mount Murphy, on the Walgreen Coast of Marie Byrd Land. Its surface speeds exceed 2 kilometres per year near its grounding line. Its fastest-flowing grounded ice is centered between 50 and 100 kilometres east of Mount Murphy. In 1967, the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names named the glacier after Fredrik T. Thwaites (1883–1961), a glacial geologist, geomorphologist and professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Sir Duncan John Wingham is a British physicist who is Professor of Climate Physics at University College London, and was the first Director of the Centre for Polar Observation & Modelling. He is chief executive of the Natural Environment Research Council and Principal Scientist for the CryoSat Satellite Mission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antarctica</span> Continent

Antarctica is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest continent, being about 40% larger than Europe, and has an area of 14,200,000 km2 (5,500,000 sq mi). Most of Antarctica is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet, with an average thickness of 1.9 km (1.2 mi).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CryoSat-2</span> European Space Agency environmental research satellite

CryoSat-2 is a European Space Agency (ESA) Earth Explorer Mission that launched on April 8th 2010. CryoSat-2 is dedicated to measuring polar sea ice thickness and monitoring changes in ice sheets. Its primary objective is to measure the thinning of Arctic sea ice, but has applications to other regions and scientific purposes, such as Antarctica and oceanography.

CryoSat-1, also known as just CryoSat, was a European Space Agency satellite which was lost in a launch failure in 2005. The satellite was launched as part of the European Space Agency's CryoSat mission, which aims to monitor ice in the high latitudes. The second mission satellite, CryoSat-2, was successfully launched in April 2010.

<i>Boaty McBoatface</i> British autonomous underwater vehicle

Boaty McBoatface is the British lead boat in a fleet of three robotic lithium battery–powered autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) of the Autosub Long Range (ALR) class. Launched in 2017 and carried on board the polar scientific research vessel RRS Sir David Attenborough, she is a focal point of the Polar Explorer Programme of the UK Government.

RRS <i>Sir David Attenborough</i> British Antarctic Survey research vessel

RRS Sir David Attenborough is a research vessel owned by the Natural Environment Research Council and operated by the British Antarctic Survey for the purposes of both research and logistic support. The ship replaces a pair of existing vessels, RRS James Clark Ross and RRS Ernest Shackleton. The vessel is named after broadcaster and naturalist Sir David Attenborough.

Helen Amanda Fricker is a glaciologist and professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego where she is a director of the Scripps Polar Center. She won the 2010 Martha T. Muse Prize for Science and Policy in Antarctica.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jemma Wadham</span> British glacial biogeochemist

Jemma L Wadham is a British glacial biogeochemist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robin Bell (scientist)</span> American geophysicist

Robin Elizabeth Bell is Palisades Geophysical Institute (PGI) Lamont Research Professor at Columbia University's Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory and a past President of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), 2019–2021. Dr. Bell was influential in co-ordinating the 2007 International Polar Year and was the first woman to chair the National Academy of Sciences Polar Research Board. She has made numerous important discoveries with regard to subglacial lakes and ice sheet dynamics, and has a ridge, called Bell Buttress, in Antarctica named after her.

Martin J. Siegert is a British glaciologist, a professor at Imperial College London, and co-director of the Grantham Institute - Climate Change and Environment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katharine Giles</span> Climate scientist

Katharine Anne Giles was a British climate scientist. Her research considered sea ice cover, ocean circulation and wind patterns. She was a passionate science communicator, and since 2015, the Association of British Science Writers has held a science communication award in her honour.

Sophie Marie Jeanne Nowicki, is a physical scientist at the Nasa Goddard Space Flight Centre. She led work investigating ice sheet changes and is Deputy Chief for the Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory where she researches ice sheet dynamics and leads the Interdisciplinary Science Team.

Sinéad Louise Farrell is a British-American space scientist who is Professor of Geographic Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research considers remote sensing and climate monitoring. She was science lead for the ICESat-2 Mission, which used laser altimetery to make height maps of Earth.

References

  1. 1 2 CPOM2015. "Welcome to CPOM". CPOM. Retrieved 11 July 2022.
  2. ↑ CPOM2015. "About CPOM". CPOM. Retrieved 11 July 2022.
  3. ↑ CPOM2015. "Partnerships". CPOM. Retrieved 11 July 2022.
  4. 1 2 "Professor Sir Duncan Wingham". www.ukri.org. Retrieved 11 July 2022.
  5. 1 2 "Professor Duncan Wingham appointed as Executive Chair Designate of the Natural Environment Research Council". GOV.UK. Retrieved 11 July 2022.
  6. ↑ "Duncan WINGHAM | Knights Bachelor | The Gazette". www.thegazette.co.uk. Retrieved 11 July 2022.
  7. 1 2 3 UCL (3 January 2013). "In Memory of Professor Seymour Laxon". UCL Earth Sciences. Retrieved 13 July 2022.
  8. 1 2 Environment. "Professor Andrew Shepherd | School of Earth and Environment | University of Leeds". environment.leeds.ac.uk. Retrieved 11 July 2022.
  9. ↑ Braakmann-Folgmann, A.; Shepherd, A.; Gerrish, L.; Izzard, J.; Ridout, A. (1 March 2022). "Observing the disintegration of the A68A iceberg from space". Remote Sensing of Environment. 270: 112855. doi: 10.1016/j.rse.2021.112855 . ISSN   0034-4257. S2CID   245858805.
  10. ↑ "COP26: Antarctic glacier is named in honour of Glasgow". BBC News. 31 October 2021. Retrieved 11 July 2022.
  11. ↑ "Arctic sea ice thinning twice as fast as thought, study finds". the Guardian. 4 June 2021. Retrieved 11 July 2022.
  12. ↑ Slater, Thomas; Lawrence, Isobel R.; Otosaka, Inès N.; Shepherd, Andrew; Gourmelen, Noel; Jakob, Livia; Tepes, Paul; Gilbert, Lin; Nienow, Peter (25 January 2021). "Review article: Earth's ice imbalance". The Cryosphere. 15 (1): 233–246. doi: 10.5194/tc-15-233-2021 . ISSN   1994-0416.
  13. ↑ "Ice sheets melting at 'worst-case scenario rate', research warns". Sky News. Retrieved 11 July 2022.
  14. ↑ "Greenland and Antarctica ice loss accelerating". BBC News. 12 March 2020. Retrieved 11 July 2022.


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