IACS Early-Career Award Recipients 2023
Veronica Tollenaar, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium
Tollenaar, V., Zekollari, H., Lhermitte, S., Tax, D., Debaille, V., Goderis, S., Claeys, P., Pattyn, F. (2022). Unexplored Antarctic meteorite collection sites revealed through machine learning, Science Advances 8, 8138, doi:10.1126/sciadv.abj8138
Citation by the evaluation panel:
The paper provides the first estimate of the probability of finding meteorites at any given location on the Antarctic ice sheet, and the number of meteorites yet to recover. The authors use a machine learning framework in which information on Antarctic meteorite finds is elegantly combined with a wealth of diverse data from remote sensing, observations and derived products. The framework allows to extract and quantify which factors (e.g., surface temperature, ice velocities, slope, etc.) are important for finding meteorites at blue ice areas. Results will help optimize future meteorite recovery missions.
Yixi Zheng, University of East Anglia, UK
Zheng, Y., Stevens, D. P., Heywood, K. J., Webber, B. G. M., and Queste, B. Y. (2022). Reversal of ocean gyres near ice shelves in the Amundsen Sea caused by the interaction of sea ice and wind, The Cryosphere 16, 3005–3019, doi:10.5194/tc-16-3005-2022
Citation by the evaluation panel:
Analyzing ship-based observations, the authors discover a hitherto unknown gyre close to the Thwaites Ice Shelf in Antarctica, which rotates in the opposite direction as an adjacent gyre close to Pine Island Glacier despite similar wind forcing. They then introduce a novel theory and use an elegant idealized numerical model to demonstrate that gyres adjacent to ice shelves can change strength and even direction depending on the angle between the sea ice edge and the wind conditions. The findings provide new insights into the complex interactions between atmosphere, sea-ice, ocean and ice shelves potentially directly affecting ice sheet behavior.
The 2023 evaluation panel: Regine Hock (Chair), Christine Hvidberg, Tómas Jóhannesson, Stanislav Kutuzov, Sophie Nowicki, Takenobu Toyota and Martin Truffer.