Disputas - Master of Science Sindre Fritzner

Master of Science Sindre M. Fritzner will Friday May 15 at 12.15 publically defend his thesis for the PhD degree in Science.

Title of the thesis:

«On sea-ice forecasting»

Popular scientific abstract:

Recent global climate change has led to an increased focus on Arctic sea ice. For the prediction of future climate scenarios, accurate prediction models are important. In addition, accurate sea-ice predictions are important for safe operations in the Arctic and potentially also for weather forecast at high latitudes. In this thesis, we aim to improve numerical sea-ice predictions by utilising satellite observations. With satellites, a vast number of Arctic sea-ice observations are produced every day, and these observations can be combined with numerical models for improved prediction. By utilising observations of sea-ice extent, sea-ice thickness and snow thickness, we improve the sea-ice prediction accuracy. In addition, as an alternative to traditional physical-based prediction models, we investigate the use of statistical prediction models based on machine learning. With these models, a similar prediction accuracy as the dynamical model is found, proving that this can potentially be a simple prediction alternative.

Supervisors:

• Professor Rune Graversen, Department of Physics and Technology, UiT (main supervisor)
• Senior Researcher Keguang Wang, Norwegian Meteorological Institute
• Senior Researcher Kai Christensen, Norwegian Meteorological Institute
• Professor II Tore Hattermann, Department of Physics and Technology, UiT

Evaluation Committee:

• Senior Scientist Dr. Martin Losch, Helemholz-Zentrum für Polar und Meeresforschung, Alfred-Wegener Institut, Germany (1. opponent)
• Professor Dr. Nedjeljka Zagar, Meteorologische Institut, University of Hamburyg, Germany (2. opponent)
• Associate Professor Andrea Marinoni, Department of Physics and Technology, UiT (internal member and leader of the committee)

Opposition ex auditorio:

If you have any questions for the candidate during the public defence, please send an e-mail to: alfred.hanssen@uit.no. He will announce them to the candidate.

Leader of the public defence:

Vice Dean of Innovation Professor Alfred Hanssen, Faculty of Science and Technology, UiT.

Trial lecture:

The trial lecture is held Friday May 15 at 10.15 and will be streamed. The title of the trial lecture:

«Observing sea ice from space: Signal versus Noise»

The public defence will be streamed from this website.

You can find the thesis here.