Climate Processes, Variability and Change

Develop coupled global ocean and atmosphere climate modelling. Studies of climate data and  models to advance the understanding of climate processes and variability, focusing on high-latitudes and global teleconnections.

Description & Objectives

Research Description

Develop coupled global ocean and atmosphere climate modelling, including the Norwegian Earth System Model (NorESM), the global Bergen Climate Model (BCM) and, Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF), and global to regional ocean general circulation models (MICOM and HYCOM). Improving model predictability of reanalysis through improved parameterization of boundary layer processes and assimilation of climate data records in the models.

Research on the northern hemisphere high latitude climate is of high priority, with focus on Arctic Sea ice concentration, extent, volume and deformation, mass reduction of the Greenland ice sheet, changes in regional ocean circulation and sea level.

The research contributes to the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research (BCCR) – a Norwegian research centre of excellence (SFF) and the Centre for Climate Dynamics (SKD) in Bergen.

Specific Research Objectives

  • To advance planetary boundary layer research and modelling of air-sea-ice interactions, including their effect on fluxes of heat and CO2 and impact on the Arctic climate change.
  • To advance the understanding of the natural and anthropogenic climate variability on inter-annual to decadal time scales for the Arctic and sub-Arctic region, including the Nordic Seas.
  • To advance the insight into mechanisms causing teleconnections between the lower latitudes and the Arctic region.
  • To study changes of the mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet and outlet glaciers in relation to atmospheric and ocean variability and implement an ice-sheet module into the Norwegian Earths System Model (NorESM).
  • To improve the understanding of the global oceanic uptake and spreading of heat and CO2 by multiple tracers study.
  • To evaluate the predictability of the climate system on interannual to decadal time scales, by applying data assimilation to the Norwegian Earth System Model.

Staff

Navn Area of Expertise
Achref Othmani oceanography
Anqi Lyu
Antonio Bonaduce oceanography
Florian Geyer oceanography
François Counillon
data assimilation
oceanography
sea ice
Heather Christine Regan
oceanography
sea ice
Helene R. Langehaug oceanography
Lingling Suo meteorology
Mohamed Babiker geo-sciences
Noel Keenlyside meteorology
Richard Davy physics
Roshin P. Raj oceanography
Stein Sandven
acoustics
oceanography
remote sensing
sea ice
Stephen Outten geophysics
Yanchun He oceanography

Projects

ArMOC

  • The ArMOC project will provide new, fundamental knowledge about key oceanic processes for the Arctic overturning circulation and their sensitivity to climate change. ArMOC will accordingly lead to reduced uncertainties in projections of Arctic climate change and an improved understanding of the role of the Arctic Ocean in global ocean circulation changes.

URSA-MAJOR

PARCIM

  • Climate Dynamics and Prediction

    SKD-PARCIM is a strategic project at the Bjerknes Center for Climate Research (2022-2025) that combines novel model devellopements, improved paleoproxy observations, and understanding of multidecadal climate variability. Paleo-proxy observations will be used to produced an online climate reanalysis of the past milenium. They will also be used to mitigate long lasting model bias in climate models.

BASIC

CoRea

ARIA

  • Climate Dynamics and Prediction, Sea Ice Modelling

    Arctic cyclones can break up and reshape the Arctic sea-ice cover and can be expected to do so more readily as the ice grows thinner due to anthropogenic climate change. Processes driven by Arctic cyclones can enhance the rate of melting of the ice and increase its export out of the Arctic. We hypothesise that surface coupling (interactions between the ocean, sea ice and atmosphere) play a crucial role in determining the life cycle of Arctic cyclones, and the effect they have on the sea ice.

BCPU