Back to search

POLRES-Polarforskning POLRES

Planetary Boundary Layer Feedbacks Affecting the Polar Amplification of Arctic Climate Change in Seasonal Ice Zone

Awarded: NOK 1.2 mill.

Project Number:

178908

Project Period:

2007 - 2011

Funding received from:

Location:

Partner countries:

Studies based on observations, climate modelling and paleo-data have revealed a strong polar amplification (PA) of climate sensitivity in the Arctic. By contrast to the mean global temperature, which has increased by less than 1 degree during the past 100 years, the mean temperature in Longyearbyen (Spitzbergen) has increased by almost 4 degrees. Thus, the same surface heat imbalance, e.g. caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases, drives much larger increase of the air surface temperature in the Arctic th an in the rest of the world. The PA has been observed in climatological data and simulated in climate models. However, geographical and seasonal patterns of the PA have not been successfully reproduced. Comprehensive measurements by research vessels and a t ice research camps revealed that physical processes are often independent in the turbulent planetary boundary layer (PBL) and the free atmosphere above it. The degree of independence remains to be quantified. Climate models, while being able to reproduc e the mean atmospheric circulation, are not able to reproduce processes in the thin, and therefore unresolved Arctic PBL. This project will use novel tools and approaches like model surgery and ghost forcing experiments as well as turbulence-resolving mod elling to improve the assessment of the Arctic climate sensitivity within the PBL. It will help to tight links between model simulations and in-situ observations at Spitzbergen.

Funding scheme:

POLRES-Polarforskning POLRES