PhD student Will Spicer and Professor Doug Benn on fieldwork in Svalbard

PhD student Will Spicer and Professor Doug Benn had a very successful week of fieldwork in Svalbard in late July and early August this year. They were working with Riko Noormets (University Centre in Svalbard) and Adrian Luckman (Swansea) to collect 3D data on glacier fronts, both above and below the waterline using a combination of side-looking sonar, drone surveys and time-lapse photography. In a week of perfect conditions aboard the UNIS vessel Hanna Resvoll, the team collected a wealth of data before and after large iceberg calving events, which Will will use as input for detailed simulations using the state-of-the-art glacier model HiDEM. Calibration of model results using the Svalbard data will open the way to predicting glacier behaviour in a wide range of situations.