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Speaker: Daniel Shapero, University of Washington
Title: Mathematics of glacier flow modeling
Abstract: Glaciers flow like a thin film of viscous fluid. They accumulate at high elevations and flow under their own weight to low elevations where they melt, either from the sun's heat or from contact with the ocean. Glaciers don't flow like simple fluids in a few key respects. The relationship between stress and strain rate is nonlinear and in some regimes depends on direction. And they can undergo brittle failure through the formation of crevasses, which ultimately lead to the breaking off of icebergs. In this talk I'll give an overview of glacier mechanics, how we simulate glacier flow with numerical methods, and some of my recent work on using convex duality theory to model both complex rheologies and iceberg calving.