Arctic Impact on Weather and Climate

Project Information

Blue-Action

Grant agreement ID: 727852

DOI

10.3030/727852

Project closed

EC signature date 12 October 2016

Start date 1 December 2016

End date 30 September 2021

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Climate action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials

Total cost

€ 8 103 125,00

EU contribution

€ 7 500 000,00

Coordinated by

DANMARKS METEOROLOGISKE INSTITUT
Denmark

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - Blue-Action (Arctic Impact on Weather and Climate)

Reporting period: 2019-12-01 to 2021-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Blue-Action has provided fundamental and empirically-grounded, executable science that can quantify and explain the role of a changing Arctic in increasing the predictive capability of weather and climate of the Northern Hemisphere.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

To achieve this, Blue-Action has taken a transdisciplinary approach, bridging scientific understanding within Arctic climate, weather and risk management research with key stakeholder knowledge of the impacts of climatic weather extremes and hazardous events, leading to the co-design of better services. This bridge has built on innovative statistical and dynamical approaches to predict weather and climate extremes. In dialogue with users, Blue-Action has taken stock in existing knowledge about cross-sectoral impacts and vulnerabilities with respect to the occurrence of these events and their prediction. Modeling and prediction capabilities have been enhanced by targeting firstly, lower latitude oceanic and atmospheric drivers of regional Arctic changes and secondly, Arctic impacts on Northern Hemisphere climate and weather extremes. Coordinated multi-model experiments have been key to test new higher resolution model configurations, innovative methods to reduce forecast error, and advanced methods to improve uptake of new Earth observations’ assets have been developed and implemented.
Blue-Action has demonstrated how such an uptake may assist in creating a better optimized observation system for various modelling applications. The improved robust and reliable forecasting can help meteorological and climate services to better deliver tailored predictions and advice, including sub-seasonal to seasonal time scales, and take Arctic climate prediction beyond seasons and to teleconnections over the Northern Hemisphere.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Through its concerted efforts, Blue-Action has contributed to the improvement of climate models to represent Arctic warming realistically and addressed its impact on regional and global atmospheric and oceanic circulation.
The achieved results of the project have been the following:

Improved capacity of climate models to represent Arctic warming and its impact on regional and global atmospheric and oceanic circulation
By improving models and projections of arctic sea-ice decline; establishing Arctic-extratropical teleconnections linked to El Nino-Southern Oscillation; by performing coordinated experiment to constrain sea ice; by assessing impacts of sea-ice loss and Arctic Warming; connecting Atlantic meridional overturning circulation impacts of Greenland melting; by delivering a ‘sea change’ in our view of overturning in the subpolar North Atlantic.

Improved capacity to predict the weather and climate of the Northern Hemisphere, and better forecast of extreme weather phenomena
By providing advances in model initialization; research into extremes and atmospheric regimes; skilfull CAO predictions; by discovering new ocean pathways to predictions; by assessing impacts of sea-ice loss and Arctic Warming; simulating subpolar freshening from Greenland melting; performing prototype sensitivity prediction experiments.

Improved uptake of measurements from satellites by making use of new Earth observation assets
By optimizing the Transport Mooring Arrays by making use of Earth observations; applying methods to constrain the sea ice concentration; using new estimates of Greenland melting assessing subpolar freshening:

Optimised observation systems for various modelling applications
By collecting and publishing new data on the eastern OSNAP (Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program); providing a cost optimization of Transport Mooring Arrays; filling parametric data gaps in ocean observing systems.

Provided a robust and reliable forecasting framework that can help meteorological and climate services to deliver better predictions, including at sub-seasonal and seasonal time scales
By developing a new cold air outbreaks over land (CAO) index and casual CAO predictors; developing novel exploitations of large ensembles; developing methods to constrain the sea ice concentration.

Improved stakeholders’ capacity in the area to respond to the impact of climatic change on the environment and human activities in the Arctic, both in the short and longer term and improved stakeholders’ capacity to adapt to climate change
By developing and implementing the prototype of the human heat-health early warning system; developing new climate indicator records; by building scenarios for the Russian Arctic.

Better servicing the economic sectors that rely on improved forecasting capacity
By delivering tailored weather and climate data for Northern Finnish winter tourism centers; by planning and decision support tools for marine operators; developing new Climate Services for Marine Fisheries.

Strengthening the competitiveness and growth of companies by developing innovations meeting the needs of European and global markets; and delivering such innovations to the markets.
By launching the Arctic Extreme Weather Risk application for providing projections of seasonal weather risk to marine operations; by prototyping the SnowApp application with useful applications in ski resorts.

Improved innovation capacity and the integration of new knowledge
By pioneering new forecasting capacity in various business sectors.

Improved professional skills and competences for those working and being trained to work within the subject areas covered by the project
By providing targeted, easy-to-understand information about climate change and climate modelling; providing opportunities for stakeholders to interact, co-design and co-develop information and services.
Contribution to the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP) and IPCC scientific assessments, and to the Copernicus Climate Change (C3S) services.

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Concept Blue-Action

Blue-Action engaging with users