Investigating the climate feedbacks that will determine the fate of the Greenland ice sheet

调查将决定格陵兰冰盖命运的气候反馈

• 批准号: 2890059
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Reading
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2890059
• 关键词: Investigating; climate; feedbacks; will; determine

Sea level change is one of the most widely recognised and zoompotentially serious consequences of climate change due to emissions of greenhouse gases. The contribution to sea level change from melting the polar ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica has already raised global sea levels by around 20mm since 1993, and this rate is expected to grow over the 21st century. Ice mass loss is the most uncertain part of the sea level change budget, largely because the science of modelling how large ice sheets interact with a changing climate has been severely limited by the fact that climate and ice sheet models do not work well together.This project proposes to use our new and unique modelling capabilities to gain new understanding of the ways in which the atmosphere and ice sheets interact. Focusing on the Greenland ice sheet, this project will investigate the atmospheric, ocean and land surface physics that determine the sensitivity of changing large-scale surface conditions on the ice, and how changes in ice extent and height feedback on both local and regional climate and atmospheric circulation. Studies with regional and global climate models for the coming century have shown that predictions of how much of the surface of the ice will melt ice for a given level of climate change can vary by factor of two or more. And whilst it has been appreciated for some time that warming of the surface due to its reduction in altitude as it melts is a crucial part of predicting the centennial rate of mass loss from Greenland, it now seems likely that changes in snowfall due to the changing shape of the ice sheet may be just as important. There are several interacting atmospheric, snow surface and ice flow processes involved in these large-scale feedbacks, and yet little research into the phenomena. How much, and in what way, ocean temperatures govern the calving rates of outflow glacier is also an important unknown. This project will use a state-of-the-art model, used to make the UK's global climate projections, interactively coupled to a dynamical model of the Greenland ice sheet. A series of experiments will investigate the mechanisms of climate-ice interactions, their links to the regional climate system and what they imply for the long-term future of the Greenland ice sheet. In parallel, observational data (obtained via remote sensing and in situ) will be used to both verify the model's capabilities and improve its physical parameterisations.

海平面变化是温室气体排放导致的气候变化最广泛认识和潜在严重后果之一。自 1993 年以来，格陵兰岛和南极洲极地冰盖融化对海平面变化的影响已使全球海平面上升约 20 毫米，预计这一速度在 21 世纪还将继续增长。冰块损失是海平面变化预算中最不确定的部分，很大程度上是因为气候和冰盖模型不能很好地协同工作，这一事实严重限制了对大冰盖如何与气候变化相互作用进行建模的科学。项目建议利用我们新的、独特的建模功能来获得对大气和冰盖相互作用方式的新理解。该项目以格陵兰冰盖为重点，将研究大气、海洋和陆地表面物理学，这些物理学决定了冰上大范围表面条件变化的敏感性，以及冰范围和高度的变化如何反馈当地和区域气候和气候变化。大气环流。对下个世纪的区域和全球气候模型的研究表明，在给定的气候变化水平下，对冰表面融化量的预测可能会存在两倍或更多的差异。虽然人们长期以来一直认识到，由于融化而导致的海拔降低而导致的地表变暖是预测格陵兰岛百年质量损失率的关键部分，但现在看来，降雪量的变化可能是由于地表变化而导致的。冰盖的形状可能同样重要。这些大规模反馈涉及几种相互作用的大气、雪面和冰流过程，但对这些现象的研究却很少。海洋温度在多大程度上以及以何种方式控制流出冰川的崩解率也是一个重要的未知数。该项目将使用最先进的模型来预测英国的全球气候，并与格陵兰冰盖的动态模型交互耦合。一系列实验将研究气候-冰相互作用的机制、它们与区域气候系统的联系以及它们对格陵兰冰盖的长期未来意味着什么。与此同时，观测数据（通过遥感和现场获得）将用于验证模型的能力并改进其物理参数设置。