The Glimmer Ice Sheet Model
Glimmer is a three-dimensional numerical ice sheet model. The core model was originally
developed by Tony Payne at the University of Bristol, but has since been modified
to form the land-ice component of the GENIE
project. The name Glimmer stands for "GENIE Land Ice Model
with Multiply Enabled Regions", which is a reference to the possibility
of specifying several regions of the globe for simulation simultaneously.
The Glimmer paper is now in press!
A landmark paper describing Glimmer and its verification against several ice sheet model benchmarks has now been accepted for publication by JGR Earth Surface:
Rutt IC, Hagdorn M, Hulton NRJ, and Payne AJ (2009), The 'Glimmer' community ice sheet model, J. Geophys. Res., doi:10.1029/2008JF001015, in press.
The paper is available from JGR here. Note that this is the version prior to copyediting and formatting.
This is now the benchmark reference of Glimmer: the authors kindly request that it be cited in any publications which use the model.
Important features:
- A regional ice model, with three-dimensional dynamics;
- The domain of each region is a projected grid, with nominally rectangular grid-boxes;
- Any number of active regions may be specified at run-time;
- May be coupled to a global climate model through a flexible, easy-to-use interface (known as GLINT);
- May be run in stand-alone mode;
- Written in Fortran 95, and designed to be as portable as possible;
- Licensed under the GNU General Public Licence.
Development of Glimmer is well-advanced, and the core model is in a mature state. You can download the latest model releases and documentation here:
- Latest code release (version 1.0.14)
- Latest documentation (version 1.0.8: this is also valid for Glimmer release 1.0.14)
Our development site is hosted by at the UK National e-Science Centre's NeSCForge. The current CVS tree, containing the latest code, is available for browsing and download, and you can explore other aspects of the project as well.
A WiKi based documentation and tutorial can be found at http://wiki.nesc.ac.uk/read/glimmer-project
Science using Glimmer
The work described in the following papers makes use of Glimmer:
Lunt, D.J., A.M. Haywood, G.L. Foster, E.J. Stone (2009) The Arctic cryosphere in the mid-Pliocene and the future. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A, 367, 49-67
Hebeler, F., R.S. Purves, S.S.R. Jamieson, (2008) The impact of parametric uncertainty and DEM error in ice sheet modelling. Journal of Glaciology, 54(188) 889-919
Hebeler, F., R.S. Purves (2008) Modelling DEM data uncertainties for Monte Carlo Simulations of Ice Sheet Models. In: A. Stein, J. Shi & W. Bijker: Quality Aspects in Spatial Data Mining, CRC Press: Boca Raton, 175-196
Jamieson, S.S.R., D.E. Sugden (2008) Landscape evolution of Antarctica. In: Cooper et al. (eds.), Antarctica: A Keystone in a Changing World - Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on Antarctic Earth Sciences. National Academies Press: Washington DC., 39-54
Jamieson, S.S.R., N.R.J. Hulton, M. Hagdorn (2008) Modelling landscape evolution under ice sheets. Geomorphology, 97 (1-2), 91-108
Lunt, D.J., G.L. Foster, A.M. Haywood, E.J. Stone (2008) Late Pliocene Greenland glaciation controlled by a decline in atmospheric CO2 levels. Nature, 454, 1102-1105. [doi:10.1038/nature07223.]
Lunt, D.J., P.J. Valdes, A.M. Haywood, I.C. Rutt, (2008) Closure of the Panama Seaway during the Pliocene: Implications for climate and Northern Hemisphere glaciation. Climate Dynamics, 30, 1-18
Le Brocq, A.M., A.J. Payne, M.J. Siegert (2006) West Antarctic balance calculations: impact of flux-routing algorithm, smoothing algorithm and topography. Computers and Geosciences, 32(10), 1780-1795