Dr Ben Galton-Fenzi – glaciologist

Scientists of the Antarctic: Dr Ben Galton-Fenzi

Video transcript

We're living at a time now where we're actually committed to change. There's a lot of heat that's been added into the earth's global climate system, so we're on a trajectory where the ice sheets are melting. They're going to continue to melt. That's a fact. What we're trying to understand now is how much and how soon.

Before I was a glaciologist with the Australian Antarctic Division, I was an oceanographer. And before that, I used to be a chef and I used to work in kitchens all around the world.

We've had a big project focused on the Totten Glacier in East Antarctica over the last couple of years. The Totten Glacier drains a region of the ice sheet that contains about 3.5m of sea level. It's a huge number. More broadly, the greater catchment that drains into that glacier contains about seven metres of sea level.

A 20 cm rise in global sea levels will cause a 100-fold increase in flooding frequency. So that's actually where the risk is. It's not in the rate of mean sea level. It's in the increased risk of flooding frequency.

So we need to understand what the system is doing today and, to do that, we actually have to get onto the glacier, so we get in helicopters and we fly out to glaciers and we take measurements in the field. Those include deploying radar instruments that measure how thick the ice is, and how rapidly it's melting from the bottom and how rapidly it's actually thinning when it's flowing out towards the oceans as well, but we also use other geophysical techniques, including seismics.

So we use a sound source that's maybe made from a small explosion, so we use some TNT or we strike a steel hammer onto a plate, and that provides the source that echoes around inside the ice and then we listen to the time it takes for that sound to come back up to the surface and we can learn information about the structure of it.

I hope eventually that what the research that we do, will lead to is be able to inform policy decisions in Australia and internationally.

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Dr Ben Galton-Fenzi: PhD (QMS), BSc (Hons EnvSc), Cert MarSc

Research interests

My research focuses on understanding the complex interactions between Antarctic ice sheets and the oceans, and how these processes drive global sea-level rise. My work spans numerical modeling, field observations, and theoretical studies, with a particular emphasis on ice-seawater interactions and the stability of ice sheets in a warming climate. I combine high-performance computing with observational data to simulate these interactions and refine predictions of future sea-level rise.

A key aspect of my research involves direct observations of the Antarctic margins and the oceans beneath the floating ice shelves, and the sea level around Antarctica and in the Southern Ocean. These observations, integrated with satellite data, are critical for improving our understanding in data-sparse regions and reducing uncertainties in sea-level projections. My work has significant implications for global climate policy, contributing to risk assessments related to ice sheet dynamics.

I enjoy the challenge of combining theory with field and satellite data, discovering new processes that enhance our understanding of the Antarctic system and its broader influence on the Earth’s climate.

Current projects

Australian Antarctic Science projects

#4574: State estimate of East Antarctic ice shelves
#4626: Southern Ocean sea level monitoring network
#4629: The stability of the Denman Ice Shelf System
#4511: ICECAP – EAGLE
#4651: Heard Island and McDonald Islands (HIMI) 2025-26 Campaign

National & international collaborations

Member, WCRP Climate and Cryosphere Science Steering Group (SSG) (2023–2026): Contributing to the strategic direction of cryospheric research under the World Climate Research Programme.
Chair, Realistic Ice-Sheet/Ocean State Estimates (RISE) International Program (2018–ongoing): Leading an international collaboration to improve ice-ocean state estimates.
Australian National Correspondent to the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS) (2016–ongoing): Representing Australia in international cryospheric science initiatives.
Australian National Correspondent, World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) (2021–ongoing): Facilitating Australia's contributions to global glacier monitoring efforts.
Australian Antarctic Program Partnership (AAPP): Contributing to AAPP’s research projects, which focus on understanding Antarctica’s influence on climate and sea level.
Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science (ACEAS): engaging in multidisciplinary projects to advance research on Antarctica’s environmental and climate systems.
Finnish Academy of Science: Coupled Ocean and Land Ice Dynamics (COLD): Collaborating to develop better coupled models that predict how land ice interacts with the ocean, focusing on the dynamic behavior of ice sheets.

Key outcome areas

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
World Glacier Monitoring Service
Global Sea Level Observing System (GLOSS)

Publications

Evolution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet over the next three centuries from an ISMIP6 model ensemble. Seroussi, H., Pelle, T., Lipscomb, W.H., Abe‐Ouchi, A., Albrecht, T., Galton-Fenzi, B.K., et al. (2024). Earth's Future, 12(9), e2024EF004561.

The Antarctic Ice Sheet and sea level: contemporary changes and future projections. Galton-Fenzi, B.K., Fricker, H. A., Bassis, J.N., Crawford, A.J., Gomez, N., Schoof, C. (2024). In: Antarctica and Planet Earth, Taylor & Francis Group. (In Press. Link when published https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003406471)

How Does the Ocean Melt Antarctic Ice Shelves? Rosevear, M.G., Gayen, B., Vreugdenhil, C.A., Galton-Fenzi, B.K. (2024). Annual Review of Marine Science, 16, 1–30.

Evaluating an accelerated forcing approach for improving computational efficiency in coupled ice sheet-ocean modelling. Zhou, Q., Zhao, C., Gladstone, R., Hattermann, T., Gwyther, D., Galton-Fenzi, B.K. (2024). Geoscientific Model Development, 1–29.

Experimental design for the marine ice sheet and ocean model intercomparison project–phase 2 (MISOMIP2). De Rydt, J., Jourdain, N., Nakayama, Y., Caspel, M., Galton-Fenzi, B.K. et al. (2024). Geoscientific Model Development, 1–45.

See more of Dr Galton-Fenzi’s publications on Google Scholar.

This content was last updated 2 months ago on 19 September 2024.