Christian Schoof

I am a fluid dynamicist interested in physical processes that occur in and around glaciers and ice sheets. My long-term goal is a better understanding of how the shape and volume of these ice masses change over time, and how they interact with their wider environment. In pursuit of that goal, I've allowed myself to get involved in a fairly large number of individual topics. Among these, the large scale dynamics of ocean-terminating ice sheets, the physics of glacier sliding and subglacial hydraulics (that is, how melt water drains once it flows into and to the bottom of a glacier) have been recurring themes. I use a variety of tools, mostly drawn from applied mathematics and physics, combined with direct, in-situ observations. Most of my theoretical work involves the study of differential equations, for which I use a mixture of methods from applied analysis, scientific computing, perturbation methods and dynamical systems theory. I seem to be particularly drawn to problems involving free boundaries, which turn out to be quite common in glaciology. In the field, I have built a program that aims to observe changes in subglacial drainage structure and its effect on glacier flow, with occasional forays into the (near-) surface storage and drainage of melt water, as well as ice-atmosphere interactions, the latter two with a set of collaborators at UBC and elsewhere. Current work in my group as of 2023 involves crevasse evolution and buckling in ice sheets and ice shelves, the evolving thermal state of ice sheets, and various aspects of subglacial hydraulics and their interaction with ice flow. Research Areas: Climate Science, Geophysics, Glaciology