The overarching objective of the Solid Earth Response and influence on Cryospheric Evolution (SERCE) scientific research programme was to advance understanding of the interactions between the solid earth and the cryosphere to better constrain ice mass balance, ice dynamics and sea level change in a warming world.
pdf SERCE Final Report (203 KB)
Summary Video
A short video on the aims and achievements of the SERCE SRP will be coming soon.
Key Legacy
SERCE supported three training schools during its term, to train the next generation of researchers. Participants were given intensive training on Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) modeling and relevant processes, including ice mass change, solid-earth deformation, and sea-level and geoid variations.
Glacial Isostatic Adjustment Training School, 13-19 September 2015
The first training school was held at the Ohio State University Stone Laboratory, Gibraltar Island (Lake Erie), Ohio, USA. From nearly 150 submissions, 45 participants from 16 countries were selected and invited; participants included 25 PhD students, 4 Postdocs and 12 Researchers/Faculty. Real time virtual participation was made available throughout the school and 31 ‘virtual participants’ from 8 additional countries took part and were able to ask questions in real time.
The recorded lectures are still available on the training school website.
Glacial Seismology Training School, 11-17 June 2017
The second training school was held in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA, and 44 students from 15 countries attended. The programme focused on developing understanding of the ice-bed interface, basal hydrology and iceberg calving using seismic methods.
Instructors' presentations are still available in PDF format on the training school website.
Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) Training School, 26-30 August 2019
The third training school was held at Lantmäteriet, Gävle, Sweden and 41 participants (predominantly PhD students and postdocs) and 16 lecturers took part, from 28 countries (6 continents). All lectures were broadcast online in real-time, with over 60 ‘virtual participants’ listening at any one time and over 500 individual views of the online content.
The recorded lectures are still available on the training school website.
Formation of the Geothermal Heat Flow (GHF) sub-group
In 2018, SERCE formed a sub-group to support international, collaborative research across multiple fields (including geology, geophysics, glaciology, and ice sheet modelling). In 2020, the group produced a White Paper on Antarctic geothermal heat flow research detailing current methods, looking at their challenges and limitations, and recommending key future directions.
Read the GHF White Paper, published as pdf SCAR Bulletin 202 (1.28 MB) .
Watch lead author Alex Burton-Johnson's video explaining what geothermal heat flow is, how it's being measured and why continued research on the topic is important for Antarctica.
Outstanding Research Questions
Three SERCE workshops came up with outstanding research questions still to be addressed: the 2017 GIA workshop in Reykjavik, the 2018 TACtical workshop in Hobart, and the 2019 GIA workshop in Ottawa.
Read the pdf outstanding research questions (153 KB) .
Data Acquisition
SERCE has made some statements on the acquisition of data in the future.
Read the pdf data acquisition statements (87 KB) .
SERCE Activities
See the pdf table of activities carried out by the SERCE programme (93 KB) .
Key Papers
See the list of pdf key papers published during the SERCE programme (136 KB) .
Key Members
View members of the pdf leadership team and steering committee (123 KB) .
Reports and Documents
SERCE reports to SCAR Delegates and Executive Committee meetings can be found through the folder SCAR Meeting Papers folder . Use the Library Search facility to filter using the tag "SERCE".
Other documents can be found in the folder SERCE folder of the SCAR Library .