This thesis focuses on the glaciation of the Late Saalian period (160 -140 ka) over Eurasia. The Quaternary Environment of the Eurasian North (QUEEN) project determined that during this period, the Eurasian ice sheet was substantially larger than during the entire Weichselian cycle and especially that of the Last Glacial Maximum (21 ka, LGM). The Late Saalian astronomical forcing was different than during the LGM while greenhouse gas concentrations were similar. To understand how this ice sheet could have grown so large over Eurasia during the Late Saalian, we use an Atmospherical General Circulation Model (AGCM) coupled to an oceanic mixed layer and a vegetation model to explore the influence of regional parameters, sea surface temperatures (SST) and orbital parameters on the surface mass balance (SMB) of the Late Saalian Eurasian ice sheet. At140 ka, proglacial lakes, vegetation and simulated Late Saalian SST cool the Eurasian climate, which reduce the ablation along the southern ice sheet margins. Dust deposition on snow has the opposite effect. The presence of a Canada Basin ice-shelf during MIS6 in the Arctic Ocean, does not affect the mass balance of the ice sheet. According to geological evidence, the Late Saalian Eurasian ice sheet reached its maximum extent before 160 ka. Northern Hemisphere high latitude summer insolation shows a large insolation peak near 150 ka. The simulated climate prior to 140 ka is milder and ablation is larger along the southern margins of the Eurasian ice sheet although the mean annual SMB is positive. The Late Saalian Eurasian ice sheet may have been large enough to generate its own cooling, thus maintaining itself over Eurasia. / Joint PhD Degree between Stockholm University and Université Joseph FourierAt the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Submitted. Paper 4: Submitted. Paper 5: Manuscript.

The Greenland Ice Sheet is the largest ice sheet in the northern hemisphere. Ongoing melting of the ice sheet, resulting in increased mass loss relative to the longer term trend, has raised concerns about the stability of the ice sheet. Melt water generated at the surface is temporarily stored in supra-glacial lakes on the ice sheet. Connections between melt water generation, storage and ice sheet dynamics highlight the importance of the surface hydrological system. In this thesis different methods are used that improve our ability to observe the supra-glacial lake system on the west Greenland Ice Sheet. This region of the Greenland Ice Sheet has the most extensive supra-glacial hydrological system with a dense network of streams connecting lakes that can exceed several square kilometres in area. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and visible-near infrared (VNIR) images are used to explore the potential of different sensor systems for regular observations of the supra-glacial lakes. SAR imagery is found to be a useful complement to VNIR data. VNIR data from moderate resolution sensors are preferred as these provide high temporal resolution data, ameliorating problems with cloud cover. The dynamic nature of the lakes makes automated classification difficult and manual mapping has been widely used. Here a new method is proposed that improves on existing methods by automating the identification and classification of lakes, and by introducing a flexible system that can capture the full range of lake forms. Applying our new method we are better able to analyse the evolution of lakes over a number of melt seasons. We find that lakes initiate after approximately 40 positive degree days. Most lakes exist for less than 20 days before draining, or later in the season, and less often, freezing over. Using the automated method developed in this thesis lakes have been mapped in imagery from 2001–2010 at approximately five day intervals. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Manuscript. Paper 4: Manuscript. Paper 5: Manuscript.</p>

Atmospheric particulate matter pollution is a challenging environmental concern in both urban and remote locations worldwide. It is intrinsically difficult to control, given numerous anthropogenic and natural sources (e.g. fossil fuel combustion, biomass burning, dust, and seaspray) and atmospheric transport up to thousands of kilometers after production. In urban regions, fine particulate matter (particles with diameters under 2.5 m) is of special concern for its ability to penetrate the human respiratory system and threaten cardiopulmonary health. A second major impact area is climate, with particulate matter altering Earth s radiative balance through scattering and absorbing solar radiation, modifying cloud properties, and reducing surface reflectivity after deposition in snow-covered regions. While atmospheric particulate matter has been generally well-characterized in populated areas of developed countries, particulate pollution in developing nations and remote regions is relatively unexplored. This thesis characterizes atmospheric particulate matter in locations that represent the extreme ends of the spectrum in terms of air pollution the rapidly-developing and heavily populated Pearl River Delta Region of China, the pristine and climate-sensitive Greenland Ice Sheet, and a remote site in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. In China, fine particles were studied through a year-long field campaign at seven sites surrounding the Pearl River Delta. Fine particulate matter was analyzed for chemical composition, regional variation, and meteorological impacts. On the Greenland Ice Sheet and in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, the carbonaceous fraction (organic and elemental carbon) of particulate matter was studied in the atmosphere and snow pack. Analyses included quantifying particulate chemical and optical properties, assessing atmospheric transport, and evaluating post-depositional processing of carbonaceous species in snow.

Increasing human activities have brought about a global warming trend, and cause global sea level rise. Investigations of variations in coastal margins of Antarctica and in the glacial dynamics of the Antarctic Ice Sheet provide useful diagnostic information for understanding and predicting sea level changes. This research investigates the coastal dynamics of the Antarctic Ice Sheet in terms of changes in the coastal margin and ice flow velocities. The primary methods used in this research include image segmentation based coastline extraction and image matching based velocity derivation. The image segmentation based coastline extraction method uses a modified adaptive thresholding algorithm to derive a high-resolution, complete coastline of Antarctica from 2000 orthorectified SAR images at the continental scale. This new coastline is compared with the 1997 coastline also derived from orthorectified Radarsat SAR images, and the 1963 coastline derived from Argon Declassified Intelligence Satellite Photographs for change detection analysis of the ice margins. The analysis results indicate, in the past four decades, the Antarctic ice sheet experienced net retreat and its areal extent has been reduced significantly. Especially, the ice shelves and glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula reveal a sustained retreating trend. In addition, the advance, retreat, and net change rates have been measured and inventoried for 200 ice shelves and glaciers. A multi-scale image matching algorithm is developed to track ice motion and to measure ice velocity for a number of sectors of the Antarctic coast based on 1997 and 2000 SAR image pairs. The results demonstrate that a multi-scale image matching algorithm is much more efficient and accurate compared with the conventional algorithm. The velocity measurements from the image matching method have been compared with those derived from InSAR techniques and those observed from conventional ground surveys during 1970-1971. The comparison reveals that the ice velocity in the front part of the Amery Ice Shelf has increased by about 50-200 m/a. The rates of ice calving and temporal variation of ice flow pattern have been also analyzed by integrating the ice margin change measurement with the ice flow velocity at the terminus of the outlet glacier.

Changes to ice sheet surface mass balance (SMB) are going to play a significant role in future sea level rise (SLR), particularly for the Greenland ice sheet. The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) found that Greenland ice sheet (GIS) response to changes in SMB is expected to contribute 9 ± 4 cm to sea level by 2100 (Fettweis et al 2013), though other estimates suggest the possibility of an even larger response. Modern ice sheet geometry and surface velocities are common metrics for determining a model’s predictability of future climate. However, care must be taken to robustly quantify prediction uncertainty because errors in boundary conditions such as SMB can be compensated by (and therefore practically inseparable from) errors in other aspects of the model, complicating calculations of total uncertainty. We find that SMB calculated using the Community Earth System Model (CESM) differs from established standards due to errors in the CESM SMB boundary condition. During the long ice sheet initialization process, small SMB errors such as these have an opportunity to amplify into larger uncertainties in GIS sensitivity to climate change. These uncertainties manifest themselves in ice sheet surface geometry changes, ice mass loss, and subsequent SLR. While any bias in SMB is not desirable, it is not yet clear how sensitive SLR projections are to boundary condition forcing errors. We explore several levels of SMB forcing bias in order to analyze their influence on future SLR. We evaluate ensembles of ice sheets forced by 4 different levels of SMB forcing error, covering a range of errors similar to SMB biases between CESM and RACMO SMB. We find that GIS SMB biases on the order of 1 m/yr result in 7.8 ± 3.4 cm SLR between 1850 and 2100, corresponding to 100% uncertainty at the 2σ level. However, we find unexpected feedbacks between SMB and surface geometry in the northern GIS. We propose that the use of elevation classes may be incorrectly altering the feedback mechanisms in that part of the ice sheet. / text

This thesis focuses on the physics of static sea-level changes following variations in the distribution of grounded ice and the influence of these changes on the stability and dynamics of marine ice sheets. Gravitational, deformational and rotational effects associated with changes in grounded ice mass lead to markedly non-uniform spatial patterns of sea-level change. I outline a revised theory for computing post-glacial sea-level predictions and discuss the dominant physical effects that contribute to the patterns of sea-level change associated with surface loading on different timescales. I show, in particular, that a large sea-level fall (rise) occurs in the vicinity of a retreating (advancing) ice sheet on both short and long timescales. I also present an application of the sea-level theory in which I predict the sea-level changes associated with a new model of North American ice sheet evolution and consider the implications of the results for efforts to establish the sources of Meltwater Pulse 1A. These results demonstrate that viscous deformational effects can influence the amplitude of sea-level changes observed at far-field sea-level sites, even when the time window being considered is relatively short (&le; 500 years). / Earth and Planetary Sciences

The recent thinning, acceleration and retreat of tidewater glaciers around Greenland suggests that these systems are highly sensitive to a change in climate. Tidewater glacier dynamics have already had a significant impact on global sea level, and, given projected future climate warming, will likely continue to do so over the coming century. Understanding of the processes connecting climatic change to tidewater glacier response is, however, at an early stage. Current leading thinking links tidewater glacier change to ocean warming by submarine melting of glacier calving fronts, yet the process of submarine melting remains poorly understood. This thesis combines modelling and field data to investigate submarine melting at tidewater glaciers, ultimately seeking to constrain the sensitivity of the Greenland Ice Sheet to climate change. Submarine melting is thought to be enhanced where subglacial runoff enters the ocean and drives energetic ice-marginal plumes. In this thesis, two contrasting models are used to examine the dynamics of these plumes; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology general circulation model (MITgcm) and the simpler buoyant plume theory (BPT). The first result of this thesis, obtained with the MITgcm, is that the spatial distribution of subglacial runoff at the grounding line of a tidewater glacier is a key control on the rate and spatial distribution of submarine melting. Focussed subglacial runoff induces rapid but localised melting, while diffuse runoff induces slower but spatially homogeneous melting. Furthermore, for the same subglacial runoff, total ablation by submarine melting from diffuse runoff exceeds that from focussed runoff by at least a factor of five. BPT is then used to examine the relationship between plume-induced submarine melting and key physical parameters, such as plume geometry, fjord stratification, and the magnitude of subglacial runoff. It is shown that submarine melt rate is proportional to the magnitude of subglacial runoff raised to the exponent of 1/3, regardless of plume geometry, provided runoff lies below a critical threshold and the fjord is weakly stratified. Above the runoff threshold and for strongly stratified fjords, the exponent respectively decreases and increases. The obtained relationships are combined into a single parameterisation thereby providing a useful first-order estimate of submarine melt rate with potential for incorporation into predictive ice flow models. Having investigated many of the factors affecting submarine melt rate, this thesis turns to the effect of melting on tidewater glacier dynamics and calving processes. Specifically, feedbacks between submarine melting and calving front shape are evaluated by coupling BPT to a dynamic ice-ocean boundary which evolves according to modelled submarine melt rates. In agreement with observations, the model shows calving fronts becoming undercut by submarine melting, but hints at a critical role for subglacial channels in this process. The total ablation by submarine melting increases with the degree of undercutting due to increased ice-ocean surface area. It is suggested that the relative pace of undercutting versus ice velocity may define the dominant calving style at a tidewater glacier. Finally, comparison of plumes modelled in both MITgcm and BPT with those observed at Kangiata Nunata Sermia (KNS), a large tidewater glacier in south-west Greenland, suggests that subglacial runoff at KNS is often diffuse in nature. In addition to the above implications for submarine melting, diffuse drainage may enhance basal sliding during warmer summers, thereby providing a potential link between increasing atmospheric temperature and tidewater glacier acceleration which does not invoke the role of the ocean. This thesis provides a comprehensive investigation and quantification of the factors affecting submarine melting at tidewater glaciers, a complex process that is believed to be one of the key influences on the current and future stability of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Based on the magnitude of modelled melt rates, and their effect on calving front shape, the process of submarine melting is a likely driver of retreat at slower-flowing tidewater glaciers in Greenland. For melting to influence the largest and fastest-flowing glaciers requires invoking a sensitive coupling between melting and calving which is as yet obscure. It should however be noted that modelled melt rates depend critically on parameters which are poorly constrained. The results and parameterisations developed in this thesis should now be taken forward through testing against field observations - which are currently rare - and, from a modelling perspective, coupling with ice flow models to provide a more complete picture of the interaction of the Greenland Ice Sheet with the ocean.

La contribution des calottes polaires à l'augmentation du niveau marin est un sujet de préoccupation majeure. Dans le cadre du réchauffement climatique, la dynamique de leurs glaciers émissaires évolue et ceux-ci accélèrent leur décharge de glace vers l'océan. En tant qu'exutoires des calottes polaires et régulateurs de leur perte de masse, la prise en compte de leur fonctionnement dans les prévisions d'augmentation du niveau marin est capitale. Cependant, les processus qui régissent leur dynamique sont mal contraints et il convient alors de réduire les incertitudes qui y sont liées. Les rétroactions entre la dynamique du front et la dynamique du glacier en sont un exemple représentatif. Dans ce cadre, cette thèse se concentre sur la modélisation de la dynamique du front de vêlage, et vise à proposer une nouvelle approche physique des mécanismes aboutissant au vêlage d'iceberg. Le travail réalisé ici couple la mécanique de l'endommagement et la mécanique de la rupture. Il intègre ainsi la dégradation progressive des propriétés rhéologiques de la glace aboutissant à la formation d'un champ de crevasses et modélise ensuite la propagation des fractures caractéristiques de l'évènement de vêlage. Ce modèle nouvellement créé est contraint sur une géométrie 2D en ligne d'écoulement du glacier Helheim, au Groenland, dont on parvient à reproduire un comportement cohérent de la partie terminale. Les tests de sensibilité menés sur chacun des paramètres introduits dans le modèle contraignent l'importance de chacun d'eux. On évalue ensuite l'impact sur la dynamique du front de deux forçages naturels couramment observés dans les fjords groenlandais : la fonte de la partie immergée du front et l'impact mécanique d'un mélange de glace (mélange de glace de mer et d'icebergs). Les résultats suggèrent que si la fonte affecte légèrement la dynamique du front, le mélange de glace provoque une réponse saisonnière d'une amplitude similaire aux variations observées dans la réalité. En frottant contre les parois du fjord, il empêche le vêlage et favorise l'avancée du glacier. On montre également que la fonte ne modifie pas le bilan de masse du glacier, mais que l'effet du mélange de glace est plus marqué. Enfin, nos résultats suggèrent que lorsque le glacier présente une extension flottante, un forçage élevé peut modifier l'équilibre du glacier et affecter plus considérablement son bilan de masse pluriannuel. / Polar ice-sheets discharge and subsequent sea level rise is a major concern. Warming climate affects the behaviour of tidewater outlets glaciers and increases their ice discharge. As they drain the ice flow toward the ocean, it is pivotal to incorporate their dynamics when modelling the ice-sheet response to global warming. However, tidewater glacier dynamics is still complicated to understand, as they are believed to involve many feedbacks. The one between calving margin dynamics and glacier general dynamics is fundamental. This PhD thesis focuses on modelling the calving front of outlet glaciers, in order to enhance the representation of physical processes occurring at their margin. To do so, we build up a new framework for calving based on damage mechanics and fracture mechanics. This allows us to represent the slow degradation of the ice rheological properties from a virgin state to the appearance of a crevasse field, as well as the rapid fracture propagation associated with calving events. Our model is then constrained within a 2D flow-line representation of Helheim Glacier, Greenland. We find some parameters sets for which the glacier behaviour is coherent with its past evolution. Sensitivity tests are carried out and they reveal the significance of each model parameter. This new calving law is then employed to study the impact of submarine frontal melting and ice mélange (heterogeneous mixture of sea-ice and icebergs) on glacier dynamics. These two forcings are usually suspected to be responsible for the seasonal variations of the calving margin. Our results show that both forcings impact the front dynamics. The melting, however, only slightly changes the front position, when the ice mélange can force the glacier front to displace up to a few kilometers. Additionally, if the melting at the front is not sufficient to affect the inter-annual mass balance, this is not obvious when forced by ice mélange. At last, our model highlights a feature which is specific to floating glaciers: for the strongest forcings, the glacier equilibrium may be modified, as well as its pluri-annual mass balance.STAR

Les prochaines modèles climatiques comprendront un modèle de calotte polaire afin de tenir en compte la dynamique de la glace et les interactions glace-océans dans ses projections. D'une part, l'océan Austral (SO) pilote l'accélération des glaciers de l'Antarctique via une augmentation de la fonte basale des ice shelves. D'autre part, l'accélération de la décharge de glace de l'Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) contribue à la montée du niveau de la mer et est susceptible de devenir le plus grand contributeur de la cryosphère d'ici la fin du siècle. En outre, l'adoucissement relié, peut avoir des répercussions importantes sur la glace de mer et sur la formation des eaux profondes. Cependant, on ne sait pas encore comment les modèles d'océan et de calotte polaire des futurs systèmes couplés vont représenter les interactions glace-océan, causes et conséquences du déséquilibre de masse de AIS. Ici, dans ce travail, les différents aspects des modèles de océan et calotte polaire ont été étudiés. Une première étape de cette thèse a été concentrée à la représentation des flux d'eau douce glaciaires dans les modèles océaniques actuels. Basé dans estimations glaciologiques, la fonte basal des ice shelves a été répartie dans une grille de ORCA025, et les taux de production d'icebergs ont été appliqués dans une version améliorée du modèle d'iceberg NEMO-ICB. Cette étude préliminaire a été utilisé pour produire une climatologie d'eau de fonte provenant des icebergs, valable pour forcer les modèles de océan actuels. Ce travail montre l'importance de représenter les flux d'eau de fonte des icebergs lors de la modélisation de la glace de mer, qui peut être obtenu en utilisant notre climatologie. Ces améliorations ont été pris en compte dans l'étude de la réponse du modèle de océan a la perte de masse de AIS. Cette étude considère une perturbation réaliste de l'eau douce glaciaire aussi près que possible de sa représentation dans les futurs modèles couplés ice-sheet/océan. Selon nos résultats, jusqu'à 50% des changements récents de volume de la glace de mer pourrait être causée par le bilan masse de l'AIS. Le forçage en eau douce glaciaire semble être cruciale pour représenter correctement les interactions glace-océan et projeter la glace de mer dans les futurs systèmes couplés. Cependant, l'estimation de l'apport d'eau douce glaciaire dans les modèles climatiques futurs sera fortement affecté par la capacité des modèles de calotte polaire de reproduire les migrations de grounding line des glacières de "marine ice sheets". Les modèles de calotte polaire actuels présentent grandes incertitudes liées aux différents réglages. Dans le contexte des futurs modèles climatiques, nous avons étudié la sensibilité des retraites de la grounding line produites par l'océan à l'application de deux lois de frottement différentes et deux différentes approximations du stress glacier. Les modèle réagit de façon presque similaire aux approximations SSA ou SSA *. Par contre, les différences dans la contribution du glacier à l'élévation du niveau de la mer peuvent être jusqu'à 50% en fonction de la loi de frottement considéré. La loi de friction Schoof, la plus physique, est nettement plus réactif aux perturbations océaniques que la loi Weertman, et devrait être pris en compte dans les systèmes couplés futurs. Ce travail souligne que les incertitudes liées aux estimations des modèles de la calotte glaciaire de migrations de grounding line peuvent contribuer non seulement à des incertitudes du futur niveau de la mer, mais aussi de la glace de mer à travers des interactions glace-océan dans les futures models climatiques. Tel conclusion suggère la nécessité d'améliorer la représentation de la fonte basal des ice shelves et le frottement du glacier, afin d'améliorer les projections climatiques des modèles climatiques, dans lequel la distribution spatiale et saisonnière des eau douce glaciaires peut jouer un rôle important en établir la glace de mer. / The next generation of climate models will include an ice-sheet model in order to improve the ice sheet mass balance projections by accounting for the ice dynamics and ice-oceans interactions. On the one hand, the Southern Ocean (SO) is indeed driving the acceleration of the Antarctic outlet glaciers via an increase in the basal melting of the ice shelves. On the other hand, the increasing ice discharge from Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) contributes to the current sea level rise and is likely to become the largest cryospheric contributor to sea level rise by the end of the current century. In addition, the related freshening may have significant implications on future sea-ice cover and on bottom water formation. However, it is not clear yet how the ocean and ice-sheet components of future coupled systems will account for the ice-ocean interactions, which are both causes and consequences of the AIS mass imbalance. Here in this work, different aspects of the standalone ocean and ice-sheet components have been investigated. A first step of this thesis has been focused in the representation of the glacial freshwater fluxes in current ocean models. Based on recent glaciological estimates, the ice shelf basal melting fluxes have been spatially distributed in an ORCA025 grid, and the calving rates have been applied into an improved version of the NEMO-ICB iceberg model. This preliminary study has been used to produce a monthly iceberg meltwater climatology, to be used to force current ocean models. This work shows the importance of representing the iceberg meltwater fluxes when modeling sea ice, which can be inexpensively achieve by using our climatology. The improvements in the representation of the glacial freshwater fluxes have been considered in the study of the ocean model response to the Antarctic mass imbalance. This study considers a realistic perturbation in the glacial freshwater forcing as close as possible as it will be represented in future ice-sheet/ocean models. According to our results, up to 50% of the recent Antarctic sea ice volume changes might be caused by the observed decadal AIS mass imbalance rate. Glacial freshwater forcing appears to be crucial to correctly represent the ice-ocean interactions and projecting sea ice cover of future coupled systems. However, the estimation of the glacial freshwater input in future climate models will be strongly dependent upon the capacity of ice-sheet models to reproduce the grounding line migrations of marine ice sheet glaciers. Current ice-sheet models present large uncertainties related to different parametrizations. In the context of the future climate models, we have studied the sensitivity of ocean-driven grounding line retreats to the application of two different friction laws and two different englacial stress approximations. The model responses almost indistinctively to either the SSA or the SSA* englacial stress approximations. However, differences in the contribution of the glacier to the sea level rise can be up to 50% depending on the friction law considered. The more physically constrained Schoof friction law is significantly more reactive to the ocean perturbations than Weertman law and should be considered in future coupled systems. This work underlines that uncertainties related to the ice sheet model estimates of grounding line migrations may not only contribute to uncertainties in sea level projections, but also the sea ice cover through the ice-ocean interaction in future ocean models.This conclusion suggests the need for improving the representation of both the ice shelf basal melting and the glacier interaction with the bedrock, in order to improve the climate projections of future climate models, in which the spatial and seasonal distribution of the glacial freshwater fluxes may play an important role in setting the sea ice cover.

Some climate models are still lacking features such as dynamical modelling of ice sheets due to their computational cost which results in poor accuracy and estimates of e.g. sea level rise. The need for low-cost high-order models initiated the development of the First-Order Stokes (or Blatter-Pattyn) model which retains much of the accuracy of the full-Stokes model but is also cost-effective. This model has proven accurate for ice sheets and glaciers with frozen bedrocks, or no-slip basal boundary conditions. However, experimental evidence seems to be lacking regarding its accuracy under sliding, or stress-free, bedrock conditions (ice-shelf conditions). Hence, it became of interest to investigate this. Numerical experiments were set up by formulating the first-order Stokes equations as a variational finite element problem, followed by implementing them using the open-source FEniCS framework. Two types of geometries were used with both no-slip and slip basal boundary conditions. Specifically, experiments B and D from the Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project for Higher-Order ice sheet Models (ISMIP-HOM) were used to benchmark the model. Local model errors were investigated and a convergence analysis was performed for both experiments. The results yielded an inherent model error of about 0.06% for ISMIP-HOM B and 0.006% for ISMIPHOM D, mostly relating to the different types of geometries used. Errors in stress-free regions were greater and varied on the order of 1%. This was deemed fairly accurate, and probably enough justification to replace models such as the Shallow Shelf Approximation with the First-Order Stokes model in some regions. However, more rigorous tests with real-world geometries may be warranted. Also noteworthy were inconsistent results in the vertical velocity under slippery conditions (ISMIPHOM D) which could either be due to coding errors or an inherent problem with the decoupling of the horizontal and vertical velocities of the First-Order Stokes model. This should be further investigated. / Vissa klimatmodeller saknar fortfarande funktioner så som dynamisk modellering av istäcken på grund av dess höga beräkningskostnad, vilket resulterar låg noggrannhet och uppskattningar av t.ex. havsnivåhöjning. Behovet av enkla modeller med hög noggrannhet satte igång utvecklingen av den s.k. Första Ordningens Stokes (eller Blatter-Pattyn) modellen. Denna modell behåller mycket av noggrannheten i den mer exakta full-Stokes-modellen men är också väldigt kostnadseffektiv. Denna modell har visat sig vara noggrann för istäcken och glaciärer med frusna berggrunder eller s.k. no-slip randvillkor. Experimentella bevis tycks dock saknas med avseende på dess noggrannhet under glidning, eller stressfria, berggrundsförhållanden (t.ex. vid ishyllor). Därför ville vi undersöka detta. Numeriska experiment upprättades genom att formulera Blatter-Pattyn ekvatonerna som ett variationsproblem (via finita elementmetoden), följt av att implementera dem med hjälp av den öppna källkoden FEniCS. Två typer av geometrier användes med både glidande och stressfria basala randvillkor. Specifikt användes experiment B och D från Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project for Higher-Order ice sheet Models (ISMIP-HOM) för att testa modellen. Lokala fel undersöktes och en konvergensanalys utfördes för båda experimenten. Resultaten gav ett modellfel på ca 0,06 % för ISMIP-HOM B och 0,006 % för ISMIP-HOM D, vilka var mest relaterade till de olika typerna av geometrier som användes. Fel i stressfria regioner var större och varierade i storleksordningen 1 %. Detta ansågs vara ganska noggrant och sannolikt tillräckligt för att ersätta modeller så som Shallow Shelf Approximationen med Blatter-Pattyn-modellen i vissa regioner. Dock krävs mer noggranna tester med mer verkliga geometrier för att dra konkreta slutsatser. Också anmärkningsvärt var motsägande resultat i den vertikala hastigheten under glidande förhållanden (ISMIP-HOM D) som antingen kan ha berott på kodningsfel eller ett modelproblem som härstammar utifrån särkopplingen mellan den horizontella- och den vertikala hastigheten i Blatter-Pattyn-modellen. Detta bör undersökas vidare.