Main tasks within ice2sea: Involvement in W6
Description of Institution: The Institute of Physics of the University of Urbino is undertaking research in various branches of fundamental and applied physics, ranging from gravitational astronomy to particle physics. During the last decade, a small section of the Institute has started to focus on several aspects of global geodynamics, and particularly on modelling of sea level variations driven by the melting of the late Pleistocene ice sheets, based both on observations of past sea levels and interpretations based on state-of-the art analytical and numerical models of mantle deformation. These institute investigations are carried out in cooperation with researchers of other institutions (Section of Geophysics of the Department of Physics – University of Bologna, Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia – Rome, Universita’ Roma III – Rome, Institute of Geophysics – ETH Zurich, LGGE Grenoble) by means of projects financed by the Italian Ministry of the University and Research over the last years. The current research programme called “The role of glacial isostatic adjustment in global and Mediterranean sea-level variations: new geophysical, geological and archaeological constraint”, has the main goal of addressing the role of mantle rheological variations upon sea level change and to collect new evidence of Holocene sea level variations along the coasts of the Mediterranean.
Department name: N/A
Staff member: Prof. Giorgio Spada
Profile of staff member: GS has worked in the field of global geodynamics since 1987. Since 1998 he is associate professor of Physics of the Solid Earth at the Faculty of Sciences and Technologies, Urbino University. He is author of 55 papers on peer reviewed international journals of geophysics on issues related with glacial isostatic adjustment and post glacial rebound, sealevel variations on various time scales, theory and applications of linear viscoelasticity, rotation and gravity field of planets, post-seismic deformations and gravity variations, inversion of geodetic and sea level data, and rheology of the mantle. GS is and has been principal investigator of national PRIN (Progetti di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale) projects on topics related with global sea level variations and mantle dynamics. He is member of the International Association of Geodesy Study Group IAG ICCT SG7: “Temporal Variations of Deformation and Gravity” and collaborates with the Special Bureau of Loading (SBL/GGFC) within project “Towards a standard model of present-day signals due to post-glacial rebound”. GS is Associate Editor of Journal of Geophysical Research (Solid Earth) since 2003. His home page is http://www.fis.uniurb.it/spada.
Selected references:
Spada, G., 2008. ALMA, a Fortran program for computing the visco-elastic Love numbers of a spherically symmetric planet, Comput. and Geosci., in press.
Spada, G., Stocchi, P., 2007. SELEN: a Fortran 90 program for solving the ”Sea Level Equation”, Comput. and Geosci., 33 (4), 538-562. doi: 10.1016/j.cageo.2006.08.006.
Spada, G., Boschi, L. 2006. Using the Post–Widder formula to compute the Earth’s viscoelastic Love numbers, Geophys. J. Int., 166 (1), 309-321. doi: 10.1111/j.1365- 246X.2006.02995.x.
Spada, G., Antonioli, A., Cianetti, S., Giunchi, C., 2006. Glacial isostatic adjustment and relative sea-level changes: the role of lithospheric and upper mantle heterogeneities in a 3-D spherical Earth. Geophys. J. Int., 165 (2), 692-702. doi: 10.1111/j.1365- 246X.2006.02969.x.
Stocchi, P., Spada, G., Cianetti, S., 2005. Isostatic rebound following the Alpine deglaciation: impact on sealevel variations and vertical movements in the Mediterranean region, Geophys. J. Int., 162 (1), 137-147. doi:10.1111/ j.1365-246X.2005.02653.x.
Spada, G., and others, 2004. Modeling Earth’s postglacial rebound, Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, 85, 62-64.
Spada, G., 2001. Mantle viscosity from Monte Carlo inversion of VLBI data, J. Geophys. Res., 106 (B8), 16,375-16,385. doi: 10.1029/2001JB000157.
