Glaciers and people around mainland Europe’s largest ice cap – the JOSTICE project

Here we present highlights from an ongoing multifaceted research project about mainland Europe's largest ice cap. The JOSTICE project (jostice.no) is funded by the Research Council of Norway and assesses present and future changes of glacier evolution and mass balance, runoff, and the local climate of the Jostedalsbreen ice cap in western Norway. The project works tightly with the local people and stakeholders to provide the scientific basis for sustainable adaptation strategies for future hydropower production, agriculture and tourism. Through this, we show how JOSTICE serves as inspiration for similar future interdisciplinary Arctic initiatives in Svalbard and beyond. Here we specifically highlight how we use coupled numerical simulations of glacier dynamics, surface mass balance and glacier evolution. Thereby we determine which glacier areas that are bound to disappear under projected future climate change. Finally, several hundred thousand guests visit Jostedalsbreen every year. In this light, we show how we work with the local tourism industry to plan and adapt to an ice cap in decline.