Targeting Glacial Retreat and Ice Stream Systems (TIGRIS)

Predicting the contribution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet to sea level rise is one of the biggest current challenges in glaciology. Through integrated fieldwork and modelling, TIGRIS is making a number of specific advances in understanding current and former change in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. TIGRIS is focussing on three key aspects: on-going glacial change; variability of fast ice flow; and subglacial sediments as a record of former deglaciation. Fieldwork is including geophysical and glaciological data acquisition on Pine Island Glacier, Rutford Ice Stream and interior Ellsworth Land. Techniques include active and passive seismology, radar, GPR, GPS and subglacial sampling. TIGRIS is also modelling ice stream dynamics and basin mass balance and evolution. As a result, TIGRIS will enable re-assessment of the likelihood of ice sheet collapse and make a more-realistic prediction of its contribution to global sea level rise, than has hitherto been possible. TIGRIS is c
losely integrating investigations of physical processes with modelling of stability/instability in marine ice sheets, allowing collection of key data for optimal model improvement and reliability. TIGRIS is intimately linked with the GRADES modelling project IMAGE (Inverse Modelling of Antarctica and Global Eustasy). TIGRIS and IMAGE have been developed together to ensure the most critical field data are acquired and the most relevant model outputs are generated. This is a project level description with datasets currently being collected.