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Understanding North Atlantic climate

  • Natural climate variability during the Quaternary. Anthropologically induced climate impact calls for improved understanding of natural climate variations. Possible future natural variations.
  • High resolution paleoceanographic variability around Iceland and in the Nordic Seas since the Weichsel glaciation maximum (18-20 ka BP.
  • Reconstruction of the Iceland Ice Sheet during the last glacial maximum (18-20 ka BP)
  • Climate and glacier variations in Iceland during the Holocene (<10 ka BP).
  • Sea ice in Icelandic waters (Remote sensing, monitoring of drift, ice drift modeling, forecasting, climatology, analyses of historical sources, impact on nature and society).
  • Record of marine mollusc migration
  • Analyses of Greenland ice cores
  • Fluvial sedimentation rates.
  • Paleo-ecology
  • Soil erosion
     

How do Icelandic glaciers respond to their environment?

  • Field measurements and satellite remote sensing of present-day glaciers in Iceland: storage, annual and long-term changes in mass balance (and overburden), runoff, jökulhlaups, erosion and sedimentation, ice flow, surge, response to subglacial geothermal and volcanic activity and meteorological observations.
  • Mass balance modeling.
  • Ice dynamic modeling
  • Ice deformation studies
  • Glacio-hydrological modeling
  • Prediction of glacier response and glacial runoff to prescribed past and future climate change.
  • Breiðamerkurjökull, a model of a rapidly retreating calving glacier in a world of rising sea level.
     

Atmosphere-water-soil-rock interaction

  • CO2 budget andfluxes in terrestrial eco-systems (vegetation, soil, rivers, lakes), present and past
  • CO2 fixationin basalt
  • Chemical weathering
  • Water pollution (surface water, groundwater, geothermal water)
  • The influence of major eruptions in the past on global climate
     

Environmental impact on the society

  • The impact of climate change on utilization of glacio-hydrological and geothermal resources, and groundwater systems supplying water for domestic and industrial use.
  • The impact of climate change on crustal uplift, vegetation, soil erosion, soil organic carbon, coastline changes and sea level rise.
  • The quality of air and water (pollution), concentration of greenhouse gasses, sediment flux to the ocean (including nutrition).
  • Geo-hazards threatening inhabited regions, damaging vegetation and soils, and disrupting the Icelandic road and aviation system.
  • Particulate matter pollution
  • Wildfires

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