Project description
A closer look at Antarctica’s changing atmosphere
How does the atmospheric water cycle work in Antarctica? The EU-funded AWACA project will strive to answer this question, improving our understanding of how snow in Antarctica forms, falls and in what quantity. To understand and predict the fate of atmospheric water including isotopes all along the tropospheric column, the project will apply a consistent and comprehensive combined observation and modelling framework. AWACA will also combine adapted/designed instruments to form fully autonomous observation platforms deployed at several sites along a 1 100 km coast-to-plateau transect aligned with the typical moisture-carrying air mass trajectories. The findings will help scientists gain a deeper understanding of past, present and future variabilities.
Objective
Climate models predict that precipitation will increase in Antarctica, which will moderate global sea-level rise. Meanwhile, the isotopic composition of snowfall records climate parameters which can be recovered in ice cores. However, there are still major gaps in our understanding of the atmospheric water cycle over Antarctica. For the first time, the AWACA project will provide a consistent and comprehensive combined observation and modeling framework to understand and predict the fate of atmospheric water all along the tropospheric column. Specifically adapted/designed instruments will be combined to form observation platforms deployed at 5 sites along a 1100 km coast-to-plateau transect aligned with the typical moisture-carrying air mass trajectories. The challenges of working in full autonomy in Antarctica, never addressed to such an extent before, will be tackled by collaborating with experts in polar technology and logistics. The resulting data set will make possible the study of the processes driving the water fluxes and composition to an unprecedented level, and the gained insights will be a strong basis to develop new physics parameterizations for regional and climate models. Once validated along the transect but also in other regions of Antarctica thanks to satellite observations and past campaigns, those models will enable us to decipher the past and future variability of the atmospheric water cycle over Antarctica.
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.
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.
- engineering and technology mechanical engineering vehicle engineering aerospace engineering satellite technology
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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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H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - 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.
ERC-SyG - Synergy grant
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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-2020-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.
75794 PARIS
France
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.