COLD

I was awarded a Starting Grant by the European Research Council (ERC) that shall finance the research project “Climate sensitivity of glacial landscape dynamics (COLD)”. In this project, I want to quantify how erosion rates in glacial landscapes vary with climate change and how such changes affect the dynamics of mountain glaciers. The project will focus on the erosion of ice-free hillslopes, which are abundant in steep mountain ranges, like the European Alps or the Himalaya. Debris that is supplied from such hillslopes ends up covering glacier surfaces where it impedes ice melting. The response of debris-covered glaciers to climate change therefore depends in part on how these hillslopes respond to climate change. Together with 3 PhD students and one Postdoc researcher, I combine cosmogenic nuclide analysis, numerical modelling, and planetary-scale remote sensing to gauge the temperature sensitivity of hillslope erosion rates in glacial landscapes. The 5-year project started in January 2018.