VENTILATE will evaluate decadal changes in ventilation of the Nordic Seas (Greenland, Iceland, and Norwegian Seas) and the Arctic Ocean.
The oceans uptake of atmospheric CO2 is connected both to physical and biological processes. This uptake has been very important for the Earths climate, modulating the effect of man-made CO2 since the industrial revolution.
However, with the continuing increase of CO2 in the atmosphere and the observed climate change, it is uncertain how the ocean’s uptake will be affected in the future.
A key knowledge here is the link between the physical processes and the oceanic carbon cycle. To increase our understanding of this link is the overall aim of VENTILATE.
Structure of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation
Den atlantiske termohaline sirkulasjonen kan sies å være Golfstrømmens drivkraft, som en pumpe i den store globale havsirkulasjonen. Når Golfstrømmens forlengelse mot nord driver oppover langs vår kyst, avgir vannet varme til omgivelsene. Det blir avkjølt og tyngre. I De nordiske havene synker vannet ned og returnerer sørover igjen.
Spørsmålet i dette forskningsprosjektet er enkelt sagt i hvilken grad vi kan si at klimaendringer i De nordiske hav er opphav til globale endringer, eller et resultat av globale endringer.
East Asian climate and Atlantic overturning circulation
The project will perform and use the numerical simulations by the Bergen Climate Model under an continuous and constatnt freshwater input of 0.4 Sv and study the mechanism how the East Asian climate responses to a reduced Atlantic meridional overturning circualtion.
The satellite data over past 30 years indicated that the Arctic sea ice is decling fast. Furthermore, results from the CMIP3 and CMIP5 models showed that the summer Arctic sea ice will disapper at the end of 21st century.
Arctic summer sea-ice extent exhibits a sharp declining trend, and the induced atmospheric warming at high latitudes in autumn has potentially important consequences for the climate of Europe and Asia. On the other hand, North America, Europe, and East Asia have experienced anomalously cold winters with record high snowfalls during some recent winters. The autumn snow cover over Eurasia is increasing, while in spring, the snow decline at high northern latitudes is the largest cryospheric change in terms of spatial extent.
The global warming is enhanced in the Arctic where surface air temperature has increased twice as much as the global average in recent decades, also called Arctic amplification. Arctic warming implies melting of sea ice, but its dynamic-thermodynamic response is neither straightforward
or necessarily linear, nor is the response of the atmosphere to sea ice
reductions. Satellite observations (1979 to present) show that the Arctic