Antoine Savard

CR Cryospheric Sciences

The 2025 Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (OSPP) Award is awarded to Antoine Savard for the poster/PICO entitled:

A new parameterization of dilation using GODAR (Savard, A.; Tremblay, B.; Polojärvi, A.)

Click here to download the poster/PICO file.

Antoine Savard completed a Ph.D. from McGill University in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences in 2025. Under the supervision of Prof. Bruno Tremblay, Antoine was working on developing parameterizations of fracture and post-fracture processes to be implemented in continuum sea ice models. He is now working as a postdoctoral researcher at Aalto University with Prof. Arttu Poloj.

In his work presented at EGU 2025, Antoine shared insights from GODAR, a new mesoscale discrete element model (DEM) that he developed specifically to simulate the pack ice. Using GODAR, which bridges the gap between small-scale DEMs and large-scale continuum models, Antoine explains the tests and experiments he and his colleagues designed to parameterize subgrid-scale processes related to divergence of sea ice along shear bands, a phenomenon also referred to as dilation. Dilation is critical to capture in continuum models as it is a key process driving the evolution of these shear lines of high deformation that enable large energy fluxes between the atmosphere and ocean. Preliminary results show that GODAR can simulate these fracture lines, from which general equations can be derived.