Yuhang Liu

Do you like playing Jenga with your friends?

A Jenga tower is made of blocks. We push or pull loose blocks from the tower and try our best to keep it balanced until a poor guy topples the whole thing. This is similar to an ice shelf collapse. Now, try to imagine it’s not you who plays the Jenga. It’s the ocean playing with the ice shelf, but the ocean is so naughty as it only takes the blocks from one side, and even from the bottom. The warm water in the ocean is not at the surface, but much deeper, transporting a large amount of heat which melts the base of the ice shelf, so the ice shelf can easily lose balance and break up. Even worse, the ocean is childish. He follows the rules sometimes by only picking one block, but he can move more than ten blocks at once, threatening the ice shelf a lot! My research is important because we help to understand the behaviour of the ocean and care about the health of the ice shelf.

I never would have imagined becoming a scientist when I was a kid, because scientists are always connected with genius, and I was just a normal kid. Growing up in an inland, old industry city, it was pretty hard for me to get to the ocean or even know something about Antarctica. At first, I studied the ocean just because I wanted to study somewhere that I had never been and move somewhere coastal. My love for the ocean started with a wonderful project in Antarctica. I was fascinated by the incredible ocean modelling and felt fulfilled and highly motivated. Finally, I realized that science belongs to people who are passionate about their careers, not just to people naturally good at maths or physics.  So, get in on the fun!