My research on ocean-ice interaction can be understood as follows. Imagine being in a large cavern with rock walls extending from the ground and arching overhead. Allow these rock walls to transform into ice and the surrounding air to flood with very cold water, so cold that--at times--it is colder than what we would normally consider the freezing point of water due to the addition of pressure and salt. This is the environment that I am interested in and that surrounds the Antarctic continent. The Antarctic Ice Sheet spills into the ocean through ice streams, or glaciers, that extend hundreds of kilometers over the ocean as floating ice shelves. Although the ocean is cold, it still has the potential to melt this ice--quite effectively--giving rise to a dynamic between oceans and ice sheets that introduces a large uncertainty for future sea level rise. My task, as an ocean circulation modeler, is to inform how the oceans interact with the ice shelves through melting and freezing at the ice shelf base, though, presently I have isolated the problem to "just" investigate melting.

My Ph.D. project on ocean/ice-shelf interactions along the Antarctic Peninsula region is funded through a NASA fellowship and guided by Drs. Laurie Padman and Dudley Chelton.

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Contact Information

ph. 541.231.7204
email. rmueller@coas.oregonstate.edu
address.104 COAS Admin. Bldg. Corvallis, OR. 97331. USA

Affiliations

College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research at Oregon State University

Earth and Space Research