Adrian Luckman (Swansea University). Larsen C Ice Shelf: Melt, ponding, ice-dynamics and the birth of a one trillion tonne iceberg

In 2017, one of the largest icebergs ever recorded broke away from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica. This talk covers the work of a team who spent years studying the ice shelf and monitoring change, providing near real time monitoring of the iceberg as it formed. It examines the processes behind the fracture of the ice shelf, compares theevent to other nearby dramatic ice shelf retreats, and examines what the fate of the Larsen C ice shelf might be in future.

Bio: Adrian Luckman worked on computer vision and tropical deforestation before settling in Swansea and getting stuck into the remote sensing of glaciers, a long-held passion. Over twenty years later he is still there, while glaciology has seen enormous growth and the availability of satellite data has blossomed. He has worked on projects in the Himalayas, Greenland, Svalbard and Antarctica, and led the MIDAS project, which first brought to light the calving of Iceberg A68 in 2017. Adrian’s focus is on retrieving ice velocities from repeat-pass satellite data, and monitors in near-real-time ice dynamics in Svalbard and interesting parts of Greenland and Antarctica using Sentinel-1 SAR.