Experiments Phase 1

The first phase of CalvingMIP comprises five experiments. These experiments are intended to act as a capability check on numerical models ability to simulate ice shelf calving. By using simple, idealised domains and directly prescribing rates of ice shelf calving we can easily check model performance against the know, apriori result of moving the calving front by a fixed amount. The experiemnts also consider the effect that a reduced calving front has upon the wider cryospheric system by investigating the grounding line response to a changing calving front position. Finally, we compare how differentnumerical models respond to using the same, simplified calving law. The idealised experimental domains comprise a simple, symetrically circular domain as well as a more complex, synthetic, mathamatically defined ice sheet "Thule".

Detailed descriptions and example results for the five experiments can be found below, as well as discussions on the bedrock geometry used in both the circular domain and Thule synthetic ice sheet.

• Experiment 1

• Experiment 2

• Experiment 3

• Experiment 4

• Experiment 5

• Thule domain

• Circular domain