Partnerships

 

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Our long-standing partnership with BAS is based on observational and theoretical work on ice-ocean interactions, and our work is closely aligned with BAS’s scientific priorities.  We have worked together on, for example the Ice2Sea and iSTAR consortia, and also partner on NERC multi-centre long-term science projects such as the BAS-led ORCHESTRA.  We have also led a number of ESA awards involving BAS, including ESA-STSE Arctic Peninsula Mass Balance and Antarctic CCI as well as the international IMBIE consortium, the UK Sea Ice Group, and the Joint Sea Ice Modelling Programme which coordinates UKESM development for sea ice across the MO, CPOM, NOC, and BAS.

 

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Collaborations with NOC also involve observational and theoretical work on ice-ocean interactions, and we contribute to the NOC-led NERC multi-centre long-term science project ACSIS.  Other examples of joint working include the the GENIE, ASBO, and TEA-COSI consortia, as well as iSTAR. We also chair the Joint Sea Ice Modelling Programme as above.

 

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Our land ice and sea ice datasets continue to be delivered to NCEO as a continuation of the partnership we have built to widen the impact of our science. For NCEO, this focuses on the latest CryoSat datasets for use in data assimilation, including work to develop a new sea ice data assimilation scheme, which aims to develop a nowcasting capability as a maritime aid.

 

CPOM maintains close links with NASA via the Mullard Space Science Laboratory.  Our main collaboration to date has been IMBIE, co-led by Andy Shepherd and Erik Ivins at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which improved estimates of the ice sheet contribution to sea level rise.  Other joint initiatives include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Arctic Gravity Model project, which produced findings on the real-world performance of global gravity models in the Arctic.

 

CPOM Director Andy Shepherd is the Principal Scientific Advisor to the CryoSat-2 mission, dedicated to measuring polar sea ice thickness and the mass balance of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.  CPOM has also led the development of the CryoSat Performance Monitoring & QA Service.  CPOM is also closely involved with other ESA missions relevant to the polar regions, including Sentinel-1, Sentinel-3 and the GRACE follow-on gravimeters, for example via the Sentinel-3 Mission Performance Centre and Validation Team.

We are also contributing to the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheet CCIs, (scientific lead for the Antarctic CCI) which is developing fundamental climate data records on ice sheet and glacier elevation changes, as well as the following initiatives: ESA-STSE Arctic Peninsula Mass Balance; REAPER (reprocessing chain for the ERS satellite altimetry dataset); GLITter (Grounding Line Ice Thickness); and ESA-STSE CryoSat CryoTop (Glacier and Ice Sheet Margin Topography).

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Our long-standing partnership with the MO includes the use of our satellite observations to evaluate and develop climate models.  This is now formalised through the Joint Sea Ice Modelling Programme (JSIMP), co-chaired by CPOM scientist Danny Feltham.   Our data are, for example, used to test global climate model predictions, in particular via the continued integration of GLIMMER into the UK Earth System Model (UKESM), and the use of near real-time sea ice measurements from CryoSat to test model assumptions and performance.  Our joint goals are now to integrate the BISICLES model into the UKESM to allow process-based projections of future sea level rise; and to assimilate measurements of sea ice into daily, seasonal and decadal weather predictions.