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Climate change and sea level.

Objective


To advance research into the basic processes that contribute to changes in the ocean volume with a changing climate. This involves the atmosphere, the oceans and the continental ice masses.


The project can be divided into the four main contributors to sea level rise: thermal expansion, glacier and small
ice cap melt, the Greenland ice sheet and the Antarctic ice sheet.
Global mean temperature change and thermal expansion estimates from different O/AGCM experiments will
be compared using a simple energy-balance upwelling-diffusion climate model, which will be modified as
necessary. The regional distribution of thermal expansion due to ocean current changes will be estimated using
a limited area ocean circulation model of the North Sea.
Past and future glacier melt will be modelled using, for the first time, monthly mean regional temperature data
as the forcing and incorporating more comprehensive glacier data including results from new field work. The
modelling range from 3-D thermomechanical models of the whole ice sheets to more detailed regional studies.
The purpose is to assess the ice masses response to climate change.
New field work will be undertaken in both Greenland and Antarctica. Part of the project concentrates on
North-East Greenland because it appears to be the most active part of the ice sheet and therefore perhaps more
sensitive to climate change than judged hitherto: large iceflows feeding the outlet glaciers have been located
from the air. The field work will include an investigation of ocean, sea-ice, glacier interactions and the new
field data will be incorporated into a detailed 3-D modelling study of a North-East Greenland outlet glacier.
In Antarctica, it is intended to document the 20th century behaviour of ice discharge. This information, together
with the new field data which will be collected on accumulation, will allow estimates of the mass balance of
the Dome Concordia drainage area.
Incapsulating the results of the project, we propose to update the user-friendly software MAGICC. MAGICC
facilitates the fast generation of global mean temperature and sea level estimates for specified emissions
scenarios over the next century. It allows uncertainties to be easily and quickly explored.

Call for proposal

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Coordinator

UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA
EU contribution
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Address
University plain
NR4 7TJ Norwich
United Kingdom

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Participants (7)