Ken Golden – University of Utah
Wednesday, April 10th, 10:45AM EDT
From Micro to Macro in the Physics and Biology of Sea Ice
Earth’s sea ice covers form a key component of the climate system. Their precipitous declines impact the polar marine environment and its ecosystems, with ripple effects felt far beyond the polar regions. As a material sea ice exhibits composite structure on many length scales. A principal challenge is how to use microstructural information to find effective properties on larger scales relevant to climate and ecological models. From tiny brine inclusions to the Arctic ice pack itself, and from microbes to polar bears, we'll tour recent advances in modeling sea ice and the ecosystems it hosts. Areas of mathematics we'll visit include percolation, fractals, random matrix theory, inverse problems, topological data analysis, and uncertainty quantification.