Project description
Melting barriers: mapping the future of global snow
Climate change is swiftly transforming snow and ice, but current models struggle to predict these changes because snow processes are not well understood. The ERC-funded SnowShifts project will address this by using advanced satellite lasers, ground sensors and computer models to accurately measure snow volume and mass in remote areas, from the poles to high mountains. By closing knowledge gaps, the project aims to identify trends in snow climates and offer essential future scenarios based on different global socio-economic pathways. Ultimately, the project will produce extensive new datasets and machine learning tools, helping scientists to significantly enhance global climate models and better prepare for the environmental impacts of a warming world.
Objective
The UN Decade of Action on Cryospheric Sciences aims to reduce uncertainties regarding the causes and effects of changes in snow, ice, and permafrost. Snow is a major contributor to these uncertainties due to the incomplete understanding and representation of snow processes in climate models. SnowShifts seeks to significantly enhance our comprehension of snow volume and mass, their non-linear dynamics and properties and, specifically, snow regime shifts within the Earth and climate systems. This will be achieved through a novel combination of in-situ and remote sensing observations, along with high-end numeric model developments. Innovative technologies such as photon-counting space-borne laser altimeters, terrestrial superconducting gravimeters, and novel scale-bridging approaches and downscaling of satellite gravimetry in extreme snow environments will be integrated with the latest multi-sensor satellite data and modelling. This will enable the retrieval of snow volume, mass, extent, and other properties, such as snow albedo, at unprecedented spatio-temporal resolutions. The combined observational and modelling advancements will define and describe trends and shifts in snow climates ranging from high-latitude polar regions to mid-latitude high-mountain ranges. This project will provide future snow scenarios for at least three socio-economic pathways refining current global and regional climate models, exploring and defining potential non-linearities in snow changes. SnowShifts will not only demonstrate the accuracy of our new models in reproducing snow quantities and dynamics, but will also generate extensive datasets characterising snow in remote and understudied regions. The new representations of snow processes will be a major outcome permitting the scientific community to incorporate the knowledge gained into climate and land surface models, and to replace in parts computationally expensive model components with machine learning emulators.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC-SYG - HORIZON ERC Synergy Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2025-SyG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
0313 Oslo
Norway
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.