Main tasks within ice2sea: W4.2 (Regional climate simulation of the Greenland ice sheet at 25 km resolution)

Description of institution: Founded in 1817, the University of Liege (ULg) is the only public Community-sponsored university in the French-speaking part of Belgium which offers a complete range of university courses at undergraduate and post-graduate levels. It is divided into seven faculties: Philosophy and Letters; Law and School of Criminology; Sciences; Medicine; Applied Sciences; Veterinary Medicine; Psychology and Educational Sciences; and three Schools : Economics and Management; Social Sciences; Criminology. Its staff comprises 3,300 employees, including 2,400 faculty members (involved n teaching and research) and 800 administrative and technical support staff. 18% of its 17,000 students come from 70 different countries. Lecturers, researchers and students take part in exchange programs with over 300 institutions. Under the label ALMA, the University of Liege has set up courses and started research programs with the neighboring universities of Aachen and Maastricht. A number of prestigious names have been associated with the history of research at the University. The quality and originality of the research work (pure and applied) have met with international recognition, especially in fields such as space research and aeronautics, astronomy, neurology, microbiology and the various branches of biotechnology. The University of Liege is involved in many European and international research programs.

Department name:  Department of Geography / Laboratory of Climatology and Topoclimatology

Staff member:  Dr. Xavier Fettweis

Profile of staff member: Born in Waremme, Belgium, in October 1977, started a scientific education in Mathematics in September 1996 at the University of Liège (Belgium) (with the highest honours). Very keen on meteorology, completed a Master Degree in June 2001, followed by a Ph.D in 2006, about the Greenland ice sheet surface mass balance, at the Institut Georges Lemaître of the Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium). Has been working part-time as computer engineer since September 2004 until August 2007 at the Institut Georges Lemaître. Has been working as fellow assistant of Prof. M. Erpicum since September 2007 at the Laboratory of Climatology and Topoclimatology from the University of Liège. His current research is focusing on the Greenland ice sheet and it’s response to climate change with the help of regional climate modelling and remote-sensing.

Selected references:

Lefebre, F., X. Fettweis, H. Gallée, J. van Ypersele, P. Marbaix, W. Greuell, and P. Calanca (2005) Evaluation of a high-resolution regional climate simulation over Greenland, Climate Dynamics, 25, 1, 07/2005, Pages 99-116, DOI 10.1007/s00382-005-0005-8.

Fettweis, X., Gallée, H., Lefebre, L., van Ypersele, J.-P. (2005) Greenland surface mass balance simulated by a regional climate model and comparison with satellite derived data in 1990-1991, Climate Dynamics, N° 24, 623-640, DOI: 10.1007/s00382-005-0010-y.

Fettweis, X., Gallée, H., Lefebre, L., van Ypersele, J.-P. (2006) The 1988-2003 Greenland ice sheet melt extent by passive microwave satellite data and a regional climate model, Climate Dynamics, N°27, 5, 531-541, DOI: 10.1007/s00382-006-0150-8.

Fettweis, X., J.-P. van Ypersele, H. Gallée, F. Lefebre, and W. Lefebvre (2007), The 1979–2005 Greenland ice sheet melt extent from passive microwave data using an improved version of the melt retrieval XPGR algorithm, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L05502, DOI: 10.1029/2006GL028787.

Fettweis, X. (2007), Reconstruction of the 1979–2006 Greenland ice sheet surface mass balance using the regional climate model MAR, The Cryosphere, 1, 21-40, 2007.

E. Hanna, J. Cappelen, X. Fettweis, P. Huybrechts, A. Luckman, M.H. Ribergaard (2008), Hydrologic response of the Greenland Ice sheet: the role of oceanographic warming, submitted to Hydrological Processes.

M. Tedesco, M. Serreze and X. Fettweis (2008), Identifying the Causes of Greenland’s Record Surface Melt in 2007, submitted to Geophys. Res. Lett.

Fettweis, X. , E. Hanna , H. Gallée , P. Huybrechts , and M. Erpicum (2008), Estimation of the Greenland ice sheet surface mass balance during both twenty and twenty-first centuries, in preparation for The Cryosphere.