Torbjørn Ims Østby

Associated SVALI PhD student

Torbjørn Ims Østby was employed in a PhD position in January 2011. He will be working on climatic mass balance modelling of Svalbard glaciers with Austfonna ice cap as a test study (SVALI projects WP 1.3, 2.3 and possibly 3.1).

The main goal of the PhD is to estimate the climatic mass balance of Svalbard glaciers from 1960 to present and make future projections of contributions to sea level rise from Svalbard glaciers. The surface energy balance at Svalbard glaciers will be investigated and the usefulness  of different kinds of models and parametrizations will be tested. A coupled surface energy balance and snowpack model forced by meteorological observation will be tested to assess the climatic mass balance. As a first, the model will be forced by local weather observations and reanalysis-data, but will later also utilize output from regional climate models. The model will be calibrated by glaciological observations undertaken at Austfonna ice cap and thereafter the model will be tested on all of Svalbard.
 

Short CV:
2011 - MSc from University of Oslo, Institute of Geoscience. Thesis: Distributed energy and surface mass balance modelling of Austfonna ice cap, Svalbard.
2009 - BSc in physics from University of Oslo and University centre in Svalbard.

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