Abstract The Lange glacier is an outlet glacier situated in the Admiralty Bay, King George Island, Peninsula Antarctica. It retreated about 1 km since the 1950s. Although recent observations do not show any significant change at the ice-ocean margin, it is not clear whether this glacier has reached a new steady state or whether it is still adjusting to new climate conditions. By combining a three-dimensional glacier model with satellite and in-situ datasets, we investigate the sensitivity of Lange glacier to perturbations in flow rate factor, friction coefficient, surface mass balance, and calving front position. The (time-dependent) perturbation experiments show that the glacier is more sensitive to changes in surface mass balance and in flow rate factor. These results suggest that the climate variability of this region plays an important role on the glacier’s dynamics, and that measurements of englacial temperature will improve the reliability of future modeling efforts. Our model shows that the position of the ice front exerts a strong control on the glacier flux. In our time-dependent simulation, the impacts of the observed front retreat on the glacier’s dynamics persist beyond the present date. This suggests that Lange is likely still adjusting to past perturbations at its terminus.

Abstract The Brazilian design load standard still provides a wind speed map developed in 1977. Since then, new data have been collected and new charts have been proposed in literature. The literature not only alerts to changes in short-term wind gust patterns, but it also warns that the wind speed values are higher than observed in the past. Many researchers have suggested that these differences are correlated to climate change effects. Besides the geophysical and societal impacts of climate change, there is a general concern between designers on the impacts of higher wind speeds on structural design. This paper aims to analyze the wind speed as a stochastic variable and its influence on the design of steel structures when changes in wind speed occur. A stochastic approach is used to evaluate expected stress values for a steel beam-column example. A Monte Carlo analysis is performed on a forty-story steel frame to compare the impact of different wind speed scenarios and types of analysis. In the analyses, the wind speed is approached by a Gumbel distribution and future wind scenarios are generated for sensitiveness evaluation. The analytical and Monte Carlo analyses indicate that greater attention shall be given to the consequences of using an average wind speed value instead of a probability distribution function.