Last week marked the 7th OGGM workshop, this time hosted by the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute (ECCI) at the University of Edinburgh. Although over the years the workshop’s structure has become established, this year introduced several new elements. One of these was a joint session with the Glacier Mass Balance Intercomparison Exercise (GLAMBIE), who, coincidentally, organized their workshop in the same city and at the same time as ours. This allowed us to connect with experts focused on mass balance measurements on a global scale and their stakeholders. We convened during a joint session and later reconvened in the evening for a Ceilidh, a traditional Scottish gathering complete with a band and dances. The band guided us through the dance steps, and soon enough, everyone was more or less gracefully moving around the room.
As in previous years, the workshop program featured a general introduction, hands-on sessions with OGGM tutorials, discussions on various topics, and themed sessions with scientific presentations. This year’s themes included: “Insights into global glacier modelling”, “Glacier evolution, past and future, ensemble studies and intercomparison”, “Accumulation and ablation processes”, “Glacier Data”, “Modelling, data assimilation and machine learning”, and “Future research plans”. Discussions were either themed based on presentation sessions or tackled different subjects such as “Future governance of OGGM” and “Coupling OGGM with a GCM”. During one of these sessions, we discussed the benefits of integrating a glacier model with a GCM and potential challenges. Two such challenges were the precipitation correction factor used in glacier modelling and the imperative of energy conservation for GCMs. We wrapped up the workshop with a delightful hike at the Grey Mare’s Tail Nature Reserve, an area still bearing the marks of past glacier erosion.
credits: Ethan Welty
We’d like to extend our gratitude to everyone who contributed, especially Beatriz Recinos and Dan Goldberg, for making this workshop a success. We’re already eagerly anticipating the next edition. Let’s wait and see where it will be…