Objective To describe how the climatic system and, in particular, theglobal ice sheets have responded to change in the insolation overthe last 250,000 years, with special emphasis on the glacialinceptions, which started roughly 238,000 and 122,000 years ago.Proxy records from ice cores will be used to obtain quantitativeinformation covering the last two climate cycles on atmosphericCO2, methane, and aerosol concentration, air temperature andelevation over Antarctica, Antarctic ice sheet accumulation rate,and 18O of the air. In parallel, work will be performedwithinother research programmes to reconstruct environmental data fromland and oceanic cores. All this geological information will beused to constrain the evolution of Northern Hemisphere ice sheetsthrough the two glacial cycles simulated by a hierarchy ofclimate models, and the glaciological models will be used toreconstruct isotopic storage.Low order models (0 and 2-dimensional) including all componentsof the climate system, three--dimensional ice-sheet models andcoupled ice-ocean-atmosphere climate models will indeed be usedto investigate these two well known climatic cycles, feedbackprocesses responsible for the amplification of the astronomicalforcing and resulting rapid growth of continental ice sheets, theinitiation of the ice sheets and the atmospheric and oceaniccirculation at different phases of their development, and therole of the ice sheets in the CO2 and 18O cycles.The lower-order models will be used to study the transientbehaviour of the climate system through the wholeglacial-interglacial cycles and as the main modelling tools forthe study of long-term climate dynamics, whereas 3-dimensionalclimate models will simulate "snapshots" of the global climate atselected climatic stages, in particular the glacial inceptions. Fields of science natural scienceschemical sciencesorganic chemistryaliphatic compoundsnatural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesphysical geographyglaciology Programme(s) FP3-ENV 1C - Specific research and technological development programme (EEC) in the field of the environment, 1990-1994 Topic(s) 0101 - Natural climate change Call for proposal Data not available Funding Scheme CSC - Cost-sharing contracts Coordinator UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN EU contribution No data Address 2,Chemin du Cyclotron 2 1348 LOUVAIN-LA-NEUVE Belgium See on map Total cost No data Participants (6) Sort alphabetically Sort by EU Contribution Expand all Collapse all CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE France EU contribution No data Address Rue Molière 54, Université de Grenoble 1 38402 SAINT-MARTIN-D'HERES See on map Total cost No data Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA) France EU contribution No data Address Centre d'Etudes de Saclay 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette See on map Total cost No data UNIVERSITAET BREMEN Germany EU contribution No data Address Bibliothekstrasse 1 28334 BREMEN See on map Total cost No data UNIVERSITY OF BERNE Switzerland EU contribution No data Address 5,Sidlerstrasse 5 3012 BERN See on map Total cost No data UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH United Kingdom EU contribution No data Address West Mains Road Kings Buildings EH9 3JW EDINBURGH See on map Total cost No data UNIVERSITY OF READING United Kingdom EU contribution No data Address Earley Gate 2, Whiteknights, Palmer Building RG6 2AU READING / SILCHESTER See on map Total cost No data
