A flying start for Nordic cryosphere research
The cryosphere - all frozen water on the face of the Earth - is an uncertain factor in global climate models. More research will improve these models – which is the aim of the three Nordic Centres of Excellence funded within the Top-level Research Initiative’s (TRI) cryosphere programme.
The NCoEs have already established a unique collaboration. From the left: Torben R. Christensen, Magnus Friberg, Michael Andersson, Jon Ove Hagen, Caroline Leck and Andreas Stohl (Photo is taken at a previous event) Photo by Lisa H. Ekli.
- The Arctic regions and the cryosphere are described in a static
and poor way in the climate models that form the basis for the work of
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says Magnus
Friberg from the Swedish Research Council, Chair of the Programme
Committee for the TRI sub-programme Interaction between climate change
and the cryosphere.- The common goal for the three Nordic Centres of
Excellence is to develop a new and dynamic climate model for the
Arctic.
The Programme Committee decided to fund three new Nordic Centres of
Excellence (NCoE) in June 2010, NCoE SVALI, NCoE CRAICC and
NCoE
DEFROST. These centres will receive about 100 million NOK in total
over the next five years.
- It has been difficult to link the Arctic to the global climate
models, so the researchers simply had to make separate models, which
were subsequently entered as a value into the larger models. This
means, however, that you lose the dynamics between the Arctic and "the
rest of the world," states Friberg. Incorporating the new Arctic model
into global climate models will lead to better knowledge on how the
global climate will develop in the future.
At a kick-off meeting in Helsinki 31 January and 1 February 2011, it
became clear that the Nordic cryosphere research has been given a
flying start. - Each centre involves partners from all Nordic countries
and several research institutions. The three centers have also
established a unique collaboration among themselves. Data collection at
places such as Greenland, Svalbard and northern Siberia is very
expensive, so the researchers have agreed to share measurement data on
for example ice thickness and radiation conditions from these areas.
They will also collaborate on the researcher education, and aim to
establish a joint academic online journal for Nordic cryosphere
research. - We wished that the Centres would share data, but now the
researchers have taken this idea and developed it much further, says
Friberg enthusiastically.
The three centers will study key areas for understanding the
interactions between the global climate and the cryosphere. In addition
to the Centre’s broad network of partners from the Nordic region, there
are collaborators from the United States, Canada and Russia in the
programme. The NCoE programme involves almost 340 researchers
overall.
Read more about the NCoEs here
Read more about
the sub-programmegramme "Interaction between climate change and the
cryosphere" here
Text: Bjarne Røsjø, BR Media.
