Calving Model Intercomparison Project (CaMIP): Overview and preliminary results

Ice shelf calving is responsible for roughly half the mass lost by Antarctic Ice Shelves and is of vital importance for determining ice-shelf stability. Despite this, it is currently poorly represented in numerical models and as such has seen limited inclusion in numerical simulations of the future Antarctic Ice Sheet. A first step towards improving this situation is assessing the capabilities and limitations of current numerical models regarding calving. The Calving Model Intercomparison Project (CaMIP) is, therefore, being undertaken to address this issue as part of the EU funded Horizon 2020 project PROTECT.

We present here an overview of the project, as well as preliminary results from the first round of experiments by a range of participating modelling groups from across the cryospheric community.