Descrizione del progetto
Misurare gli impatti quantificabili esercitati sulla climatologia
L’Oceano Australe è responsabile di un valore che si ipotizza possa raggiungere oltre il 60 % del calore in eccesso associato ai cambiamenti climatici antropogenici assorbito ogni anno dagli oceani presenti nel mondo. Controllando gli scambi di calore e carbonio tra l’atmosfera e l’oceano, esso regola il clima a livello globale. Ciononostante, si sa poco sui processi alla base di questa attività. Con l’obiettivo di ridurre le incertezze nelle previsioni sui cambiamenti climatici, il progetto SO-CHIC, finanziato dall’UE, quantificherà la variabilità dei bilanci di calore e carbonio nell’Oceano Australe attraverso lo svolgimento di un’indagine sui processi chiave che controllano gli scambi tra l’atmosfera, l’oceano e il ghiaccio marino, il tutto mediante l’impiego di una combinazione di approcci di osservazione e modellizzazione. Il progetto combinerà operazioni osservazionali con le serie temporali decennali esistenti e attività di modellizzazione d’avanguardia.
Obiettivo
The Southern Ocean regulates the global climate by controlling heat and carbon exchanges between the atmosphere and the ocean. It is responsible for about 60-90% of the excess heat (i.e. associated with anthropogenic climate change) absorbed by the World Oceans each year, and is also recognised to largely control decadal scale variability of Earth carbon budget, with key implications for decision makers and regular global stocktake agreed as part of the Paris agreement. Despite such pivotal climate importance, its representation in global climate model represents one of the main weaknesses of climate simulation and projection because too little is known about the underlying processes. Limitations come both from the lack of observations in this extreme environment and its inherent sensitivity to intermittent small-scale processes that are not captured in current Earth system models. The overall objective of SO-CHIC is to understand and quantify variability of heat and carbon budgets in the Southern Ocean through an investigation of the key processes controlling exchanges between the atmosphere, ocean and sea ice using a combination of observational and modelling approaches. SO-CHIC considers the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean as a natural laboratory both because of its worldwide importance in water-mass formation and because of the strong European presence in this sector already established at national levels, which allow to best leverage existing expertise, infrastructure, and observation network, around one single coordinated overall objective. SO-CHIC also takes the opportunity of the recent re-appearance of the Atlantic Sector Weddell Polynya to unveil its dynamics and global impact on heat and carbon cycles. A combination of dedicated observation, existing decades-long time-series, and state-of-the-art modelling will be used to address specific objectives on key processes, as well as their impact and feedback on the large-scale atmosphere-ocean system.
Campo scientifico
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Invito a presentare proposte
Vedi altri progetti per questo bandoBando secondario
H2020-LC-CLA-2018-2
Meccanismo di finanziamento
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinatore
75006 Paris
Francia