For students
We welcome students who are interested in doing a Bachelor’s or Master’s thesis with our group. Most thesis projects are based on numerical modeling or on the analysis of model output and observations. Each project addresses a current research question and is supervised by a scientist who works with the models and data involved.
What we do
Our group investigates how the cryosphere interacts with the rest of the climate system, on timescales from decades to glacial cycles. Our research covers the following topics:
- Ice sheets and glaciers. We simulate the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, as well as past ice sheets, with the ice-sheet model Yelmo.
- Snowpack and surface mass balance. We model how snow accumulates, melts and refreezes with the snowpack model Chion.jl. These processes determine the surface mass balance of ice sheets and glaciers.
- Mountain glaciers. We study the evolution of mountain glaciers at the regional scale and their response to climate change.
- Climate–cryosphere interactions. We use coupled models such as CLIMBER-X to study the feedbacks between ice sheets, atmosphere and ocean.
- AMOC and the Southern Ocean. We investigate the stability of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and the role of the Southern Ocean in the climate system, including their response to meltwater from the ice sheets.
What we look for
Most projects involve programming, mainly in Julia and Fortran. Experience with these languages is helpful, but not required. More important is an interest in physical processes and a willingness to learn technical tools, such as running models on a computing cluster and analyzing large datasets. We welcome students from physics, mathematics, geosciences, meteorology, oceanography, computer science and related fields.
A member of our group typically acts as co-supervisor of the thesis. The supervision arrangement differs between universities, so it should be determined early in the project.
Potential topics
The topics below are examples of projects we are currently offering. Most can be adapted to the level of the thesis and to your interests. If none of them fits, we are also happy to discuss your own ideas. For a specific topic, please contact the person listed. For general questions, write to Alexander Robinson.
A machine-learning surface mass balance model MSc
Physically based surface mass balance (SMB) models are computationally expensive for long simulations or large ensembles. Machine-learning (ML) models trained on their output offer a computationally efficient alternative. In this project, you will extend an existing ML-based SMB model, for example by adding predictors, testing other model architectures or applying it to new regions. Some familiarity with ML methods is helpful.
Contact: Nils Bochow
machine learning surface mass balance emulation
Albedo parameterizations for a surface mass balance model BSc MSc
Surface albedo determines how much shortwave radiation is absorbed by snow and ice, and thus how much energy is available for melt. In this project, you will develop and test albedo parameterizations for the snowpack model Chion.jl, which calculates the surface mass balance (SMB) of ice sheets and glaciers. The parameterizations will be constrained with satellite observations (e.g., MODIS). Depending on your interests, this can include simple machine-learning models trained on the observations.
Contact: Nils Bochow
Chion.jl surface mass balance albedo machine learning MODIS remote sensing
Edge states of the Greenland ice sheet MSc
The Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) has multiple stable states for the same climate. These are separated by unstable states, so-called edge states, that mark the boundary between their basins of attraction. In this project, you will use the ice-sheet model Yelmo to locate edge states of the GrIS with numerical methods such as edge tracking. The results indicate how far the ice sheet can be perturbed before it no longer recovers. The project is purely model based.
Contact: Nils Bochow
Yelmo Greenland tipping points dynamical systems
Effect of extreme events on surface mass balance BSc MSc
Heat waves and other extreme weather events can cause large melt anomalies, such as the melt events over the Greenland ice sheet in 2012 and 2019. In this project, you will use the snowpack model Chion.jl to quantify how such events affect the surface mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet or of mountain glaciers. Possible questions include how much of the total mass loss is caused by a few extreme events, and whether changes in their frequency or changes in the mean climate dominate future mass loss.
Contact: Nils Bochow
Chion.jl surface mass balance extreme events Greenland glaciers