Valentina Radic

Biography

Assistant Professor - University of British Columbia (2012 - ongoing) Post-doctoral fellow - University of British Columbia (2008 - 2012) PhD - University of Alaska Fairbanks, Geophysical Institute, AK, USA (2007 - 2008) thesis pdf (link is external) Licentiate - Stockholm University, Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm, Sweden (2004 - 2007) MSc & BSc - University of Zagreb, Department of Geophysics, Zagreb, Croatia (1998 - 2004) Assistant Professor - University of British Columbia (2012 - ongoing) Post-doctoral fellow - University of British Columbia (2008 - 2012) PhD - University of Alaska Fairbanks, Geophysical Institute, AK, USA (2007 - 2008) thesis pdf (link is external) Licentiate - Stockholm University, Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm, Sweden (2004 - 2007) MSc & BSc - University of Zagreb, Department of Geophysics, Zagreb, Croatia (1998 - 2004)

Research Interest

My research interests cover a broad range of topics related to global climate change, in particular: climate change impact studies, the contribution of glaciers to sea level rise, estimates of present and future glacier mass changes on regional and global scale, downscaling of global and regional climate models, and the evaluation of climate model performance.The primary focus of my current research is on processes at the climate-glacier interface, especially on numerical modeling of glacier response to climate forcing. Past and ongoing research 1) Modeling the contribution of future glacier melt to sea level rise World-wide melting of mountain glaciers and ice caps (i.e. glaciers other than the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets) has been identified as a significant contributor to current and future sea-level rise. Global sea-level rise is expected to continue throughout the 21st century, with major impacts on coastal cities, deltaic lowlands, small islands and coastal ecosystems. During my PhD research (2004-2008), I developed and applied novel numerical and statistical methods to project the future contribution of glacier melt to sea-level rise in response to future climate forcing scenarios from global climate models. This research has explored the following scientific questions: How much will melting glaciers contribute to global sea level rise in the 21st century and what are the uncertainties in these projections? Radić & Hock (2011) (link is external) provided one of the first detailed and regionally resolved projections of glacier mass change on a global scale. With the developed surface mass balance model we projected the 21st century mass change for all glaciers in response to future temperature and precipitation scenarios from ten global climate models. We identified the regions with the largest contribution to future sea level rise (Arctic Canada, Alaska and Antarctic glaciers) and the regions most vulnerable to glacier wastage (European Alps, New Zealand, Caucasus; which are projected to lose more than 75% of their current ice volume by 2100). In Radić et al. (2013) (link is external) we updated the results using new global glacier inventory and new climate scenarios prepared for the Fifth Assessment Report of IPCC. What is the total, worldwide volume of mountain glaciers and the equivalent sea-level rise if they were all to melt? Radić & Hock (2010) (link is external) developed a statistical upscaling method, based on theoretical area-volume scaling relationships of individual glaciers, in order to estimate regional and global glacier volumes. This was the first study to provide detailed regional and global assessments of glacier volumes based on, at the time, incomplete global glacier inventory. How can ice flow dynamics of individual glaciers within global inventories be predicted? Radić et al. (2008) (link is external) developed and tested a methodology for simulating glacier flow using a small number of degrees of freedom, based on a theoretical scaling argument linking glacier area to glacier volume. This methodology allowed us to simulate individual glacier geometry changes at the global scale rather than assuming static glacier geometries. The scaling method is still being widely used in the glaciological community as the currently most optimal approach for modeling the dynamics of individual mountain glaciers globally. 2) Regional mass-balance modeling of glaciers in western Canada Beyond having an effect on global sea level, regional glacier mass changes have major implications for regional hydrology, in particular the seasonality of runoff and the availability of fresh water for irrigation and hydropower generation. My postdoctoral research at UBC (2008-2012) has focused on a highly detailed study of glacier changes in western Canada, where significant infrastructure investment in hydropower generation in British Columbia relies on future water resources. As part of The Western Canadian Cryospheric Network (WC2N; a consortium of university, provincial, and federal researchers funded by the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, CFCAS) we have focused on assessing the current and future mass changes of glaciers in western Canada. Under leadership of Garry Clarke, our UBC glaciology group has developed a Regional Glaciation Model which couples a model of glacier surface mass balance with an ice dynamics model of high complexity, allowing us to produce high-resolution simulations of mass changes for the full suite of glaciers in the region. The final results of this work are presented in Clarke et al. (2015). Under the same research project I developed a method (Radić & Clarke 2011 (link is external)) for evaluation of global climate models whose climate scenarios are used for projections of glaciers evolution in this region.