My latest paper on meltwater pond formation thresholds and potential for ice shelf hydrofracture is accepted!
No planned conferences as I have 2 young kids
No current teaching
Welcome on my website! Before you go on exploring my site, here is a short introduction:
I am Melchior van Wessem, a PostDoctoral researcher at the Institute
for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht (IMAU) in the Ice & Climate group. I study the Antarctic climate and surface mass balance using the regional atmospheric climate model RACMO2. I started working here in 2011 as a PhD-student, which I succesfully finished in March 2016. Now I am doing a PostDoc on my personal Veni-grant at IMAU, basically continuing my previous work. In my project I am setting up several RACMO2 runs at high- resolution, with a focus on surface meltwater production in present-day and future climates. Find out some more about this on my website!
The main things I am currently working on:
1. A paper about meltwater pond formation thresholds is about to be published. Keep an eye out on the internet ;-) It will be in Nature Climate Change!
2. Keeping up-to date the RACMO2.3p2 runs for Antarctica
3. Preparing for my next steps in my working life, as my current postdoc ends next August.
(Personal) highlight papers to have come out recently
1.
Snow accumulation controls atmospheric warming thresholds for melt pond formation and potential hydrofracture of Antarctic ice shelves (Accepted in Nature Climate Change, this is the pre-review ResearchSquare link)
2. An exploratory modelling study of perennial firn aquifers in the Antarctic Peninsula for the period 1979–2016 (The Cryosphere)
3. Vulnerability of Antarctica’s ice shelves to meltwater-driven fracture (Nature)