Centre for Ice and Climate is a research group under the section Physics of Ice, Climate and Earth at the Niels Bohr Institute. It is a leading international group in ice core related research, pioneering novel measurements and ice flow models and leading international ice core drilling projects, especially on the Greenland ice sheet.

The previous projects GRIP, NGRIP, NEEM and RECAP have led to comprehensive investigations into the climate of the past 128,000 years, corresponding to the most recent glacial-interglacial cycle.

We also drill ice cores in the Antarctic in cooperation with our partners (EPICA EDC and EML, RICE, ABN, Mount Brown) and are at present very active in the coming European Beyond EPICA Oldest Ice (BEOI) project.

The research group is umbrella for the water isotope group, the greenhouse gas group, the impurity group, the dating group and the ice modelling group.

Current Projects and collaborations

• Beyond EPICA Oldest Ice

  The aim of the project is to retrieve a continuous ice core to bedrock in Antarctica and use this to derive first high-resolution climate records over the time interval older than 700 kyr. UCPH is one of twelve project partners.

• ESA CCI+ GIS

  European Space Agency’s Climate Change Initiative+ project for the Greenland ice sheet develops monitoring data products from the Greenland ice sheet based on the satellite record. The Niels Bohr Insitute is one of nine project partners.

• EastGRIP

  The East Greenland Ice-core Project - EastGRIP - is an international ice core research project aimed at retrieving an ice core by drilling through the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream (NEGIS).

• Exploration rovers for investigation of ice sheet changes in Greenland

  Our vision is to develop an array of autonomous rovers to explore the interior of the Greenland ice sheet continuously, even through winter seasons where satellite observations are limited due to the polar night.

• GIOS

  The purpose of the Greenland Integrated Observing System (GIOS) is to resolve and understand the mechanisms behind climate and environmental change in Greenland and beyond.

• IceFlow

  A project with the overall aim to investigate how ice flows and ice streams influence the evolution of the Greenland ice sheet.

• INTIMATE

  A project integrating ice core, marine and terrestrial records with a focus on Europe in the period 60 000 to 8 000 years ago.

• Isaaffik

  In Greenlandic Isaaffik means ’portal’. It’s an Artic web portal that promotes Artic research and collaboration between polar researchers and institutions.

• Methane emissions resulting from rapid climate change

  In this project, we want to understand what sources of methane increase during Dansgaard-Oeschger events and where they are located.

• Old Noble

  The project aims to make a well dated reconstruction of global ocean heat content since 1850. This record will provide strong constraints on Earth system models, and sea level rise.

• The whisper of ancient air bubbles in polar ice

  By using the sound of bursting bubbles in ancient polar ice the project aims to reconstruct the elevation changes the Greenland Ice Sheet has undergone the last 10,000 years.

• TiPES

  TiPES aims to understand the tipping points of the climate system in a joint effort of 18 European institutions, combining paleoclimatology, time series analysis, Earth system modelling of past and future climates, applied mathematics and dynamical system theory, as well as decision theory.

Past projects and collaborations

• Abrupt climate change and the nitrogen cycle

  The aim of the project was to develope an experimental setup for measurement of nitrogen oxides in ice cores and to understand why the amount of nitrogen oxides has changed in the past during abrupt climate changes like the last transition between glacial and interglacial periods.

• ChronoClimate

  The project, which is supported by the Carlsberg Foundation, provides new knowledge about the mechanisms of the abrupt climate changes of the past based on ice-core data and new climate model results.

• CRITICS

  The H2020 Marie Curie Innovative Training Network (ITN) CRITICS was a world-leading European research consortium providing a unique multidisciplinary training environment for fifteen postgraduates for project work lasting for 36 months.

• GRCR

  Greenland Climate Research Centre is concerned with the expected impacts of climate change on Arctic marine, limnic and terrestrial environments and on Greenlandic society. (opens in new window).

• Ice2Ice

  EU synergy project, with Norwegian and danish project partners, which main hypothesis is that Arctic and sub-Arctic sea ice cover excerts important controls on past and future Greenland temperature and ice sheet variations.

• Ice2Sea

  An EU Seventh Framework science programme that will improve projections of the contribution of ice to future sea-level rise. (www.ice2sea.eu/).

• INTRAMIF

  A Marie Curie Initial Training Network. The Centre for Ice and Climate is participating in this program utilizing triple isotope effects to reconstruct the globes biological activity in the past. (opens in new window)

• Mount Brown Antarctica climate record

  A 2000-year annual climate record from coastal East Antarctica, to study climate variability in the Indian Ocean basin. (Engelsksproget)

• NEEM

  North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling Project (NEEM) is an international ice core research project aimed at retrieving an ice core from North-West Greenland.

• Nord-Syd Klimaforbindelser

  The North-South Climate Connections seeks to find an answer to how the climate at the two hemispheres is coupled.

• Past4Future

  A collaborative EU project combining multi-disciplinary paleoclimate records to analyse, model and reconstruct abrupt climate changes during the previous interglacial period. (opens in new window).

• REnland ice CAP project (RECAP)

  The RECAP project was about retrieving and analyzing a high quality ice core from the Renland ice cap (Engelsksproget).

• SVALI

  Nordic Centre of Excellence aimed at quantifying the current and future melt-rate of land-based ice in the Arctic and North-Atlantic region and to assess the consequences from this. (opens in new window).

• SWIPA

  Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic.

• Physics of the unexpected: Understanding tipping points in natural systems

  The theme of the research project is to identify the dynamics of tipping points and regime shifts in the climate.

• Tipping Points

  In collaboration with Alpha film educational movies about tipping points for use in high schools etc. were developed. The project was funded by the Ministry of Children and Education.

• WATERundertheICE

  The primary objectives of the project are to map melt water extent of the Greenland ice sheet and its impact (pdf file with project description).

• Unraveling paleo-climate knots with lasers

  The goal of the project is to decrypt seemingly lost past-climate information from the bottom of a Greenland ice core by developing the most advanced measurement method for polar ice cores.

CHEMISTRY AND IMPURITIES

Employees

Anders Svensson, Associate Professor 

Helle Astrid Kjær, Assistant Professor

Meg Harland, PhD Fellow

Nanna Andreasen, PhD Fellow

DRILLING

Employees

Steffen Bo Hansen, Research Technician

Grant Boeckmann, Engineer

GAS

Employees

Michael Döring, Postdoc

Thomas Blunier, Professor

ICE MODELLING AND OBSERVATIONS

Employees

Aslak Grinsted, Associate Professor

Christine Schøtt Hvidberg, Professor

Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Professor

Iben Koldtoft, Coordinator

Julien Westhoff, Postdoc

Miguel Moreno, PhD Fellow

Mikkel Langgaard Lauritzen, PhD Fellow

Nicholas Mossor Rathmann, Postdoc

Niels Fabrin Nymand, PhD Fellow

Sepp Kipfstuhl, External Consultant

Tamara Gerber, Postdoc

STRATIGRAPHIC ANALYSIS AND DATING

Employees

Anders Svensson, Associate Professor

Eliza Cook, Assistant Professor

Guido Vettoretti, Assistant Professor

Helle Astrid Kjær, Assistant Professor

Jørgen Peder Steffensen, Professor

Julien Westhoff, Postdoc

Miguel Moreno, PhD Fellow

Nanna Andreasen, PhD Fellow

Sune Olander Rasmussen, Associate Professor

Tamara Gerber, Postdoc

WATER STABLE ISOTOPES

Employees

Bo Møllesøe Vinther, Associate Professor

Eirini Malegiannaki, PhD Fellow

Vasileios Gkinis, Associate professor

Students

TBA

List of scientific publications produced by staff from Centre for Ice and Climate, the Ice and Climate Research Group, and the former Glaciology group of the Department of Geophysics of the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen.

A list of theses and dissertations written in English is also available.

On our Danish web pages, lists of outreach articles and theses and bachelor projects written in Danish can be found.

The following data sets are available online from Centre for Ice and Climate, University of Copenhagen. Please cite the relevant articles when using the data.

For other data, please contact ice-core curator J. P. Steffensen and include a description of the intended use of the data and a list of which core(s), parameter(s), time span, and resolution are wanted. Expect long response times during the field season.

View our data, icesamples and software

Ice sample request procedure 

The ice core repository in Copenhagen contains more than 17 km of documented ice core material from more than 25 locations in Greenland, including the six deep ice cores from Camp Century, DYE-3, GRIP, NGRIP, NEEM and EGRIP.

Professor J. P. Steffensen is curator of the ice core collection. Ice core material is mainly provided to the international partners of the drilling operations, however the curator will consider requests for ice core material from other scientists.

A request for ice core material should contain:

• a description of the scientific rationale behind the request
• an assessment of the amounts of ice needed
• a short description of the applicant's scientific background.

If ice material is available, the curator will forward the request to the Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) of the relevant project for an evaluation of the request. The SSC consists of a group of Principal Investigators of the relevant drilling project.

Please send your request for ice samples to the ice curator email box, at Physics of Ice, Climate and Earth, and you will hear from us shortly.