Global ice sheet modeling

• Main Authors: Hughes, T.J., Fastook, J.L.
• Other Authors: United States. Department of Energy.
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Pacific Northwest Laboratory 1994
• Subjects: Environmental Effects; Radioactive Waste Disposal; 05 Nuclear Fuels; Yucca Mountain Project; 99 Mathematics; Computers; Information Science; Management; Law; Miscellaneous; Climatic Change; Site Characterization; Structural Models; Yucca Mountain; 54 Environmental Sciences; Glaciers; Dynamics; Climate Models; Pacific; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.2172/145218; http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc618789/

The University of Maine conducted this study for Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) as part of a global climate modeling task for site characterization of the potential nuclear waste respository site at Yucca Mountain, NV. The purpose of the study was to develop a global ice sheet dynamics model that will forecast the three-dimensional configuration of global ice sheets for specific climate change scenarios. The objective of the third (final) year of the work was to produce ice sheet data for glaciation scenarios covering the next 100,000 years. This was accomplished using both the map-plane and flowband solutions of our time-dependent, finite-element gridpoint model. The theory and equations used to develop the ice sheet models are presented. Three future scenarios were simulated by the model and results are discussed.