关键词：大气；气候变化；全球变暖
摘 要：The objective of this project was to investigate the complex fracture of ice and understand its role within larger ice sheet simulations and global climate change. This objective was achieved by developing novel physics based models for ice, novel numerical tools to enable the modeling of the physics and by collaboration with the ice community experts. Fracture of ice is important in several fields of which the most visible and certainly the most significant is global warming. This has recently received international attention due to the collapse of some significant ice shelves. Ice fracture, however, is also important in other areas including oil and gas exploration and production within ice-infested waters, materials science research and length scales in ice, and microbiology. At the present time, ice fracture is not explicitly considered within ice sheet models due in part to large computational costs associated with the accurate modeling of this complex phenomena. However, fracture not only plays an extremely important role in regional behavior but also influences ice dynamics over much larger zones in ways that are currently not well understood. Dramatic illustrations of fracture-induced phenomena most notably include the recent collapse of ice shelves in Antarctica (e.g. partial collapse of the Wilkins shelf in March of 2008 and the diminishing extent of the Larsen B shelf from 1998 to 2002).