Top-level Research Initiative

Interaction between climate change and cryosphere

Magnus FribergChair of Programme Committee

TFI annual Conference, 16 September 2010

UNEP map of Cryosphere

The present Cryosphere

The past CryosphereUnderstanding feed-back loops

2xCO2, cold orbit8.29x106 km3

(Oligocene c. 25 My)

1xCO2, cold orbit30.50x106 km3

(Last Glacial Maximum)

DeConto et al., Nature, 2008Future is data poor

Onset of glaciations

DeConto et al., Nature, 2008

Zachos, Dickens, Zeebe, (2008)

Amplifies initial growth Produces

hysteresis

CO2 cooling

Hysteresis

Stability of large ice sheets

From DeConto 2010

DeConto et al., Nature, 2008

East Antarctic Ice Sheet hysteresis

N. Hem ice sheet hysteresis

Stability of large ice sheets

Trace gases and shortlived climate drivers

IPCC report AR4 WG1, 2007

The Role of Permafrost

Walsh et. al 2010, ACIA report

The Sea ice extent over time

IPCC report AR4 WG1, 2007

NCoE – ICCC

Nordic Centre of Excellence Programme

Interaction between Climate Change and the

Cryosphere

Purpose and rationale

The objective of ICCC is to support science driven questions of high interest to society, science, industry and/or national infrastructure.

All Nordic countries are effected by the Cryosphere

IPCC models performs badly for the Cryosphere

Important for industries like hydropower, forestry, fishing, transport, exploration and tourism

Nordic Cryosphere research is in many ways world leading

Project duration is five years (3+2)

Funding covers:• Support to researcher and key staff• Fellowships for visiting professors • Fellowships for post docs• Fellowships for PhD students• Nordic research schools (research training)• Equipment • Travel, management and co-ordination

Support to ICCC NCoE

Objectives of CRAICC – Cryosphere-Atmosphere Interactions in a Changing Arctic Climate • Role of short-lived climate

forcing agents - SLCF

• Identify and quantify the major processes controlling Arctic warming and related feedback mechanisms and to outline strategies to mitigate Arctic warming

• Develop Nordic Earth System modelling

• Supradisciplinary knowledge transfer

Objectives of DEFROST

• To improve our understanding of Arctic terrestrial and shallow sub-sea permafrost interactions with climate

• To provide improved data on energy exchange, carbon cycling and GHG emissions from terrestrial and near coastal cryospheric environments

• To improve on climate model capabilities for simulating the feedback processes associated with observed changes in permafrost, snow and ice

Objectives of SVALI – Stability and Variations of Arctic Land Ice

• A comprehensive joint Nordic research programme to study basic processes (flux of meltwater and icebergs from glaciers)

• Using remote sensing, airborne and in-situ measurements

• Carry out advanced Earth system Modelling

• Focus on glaciers in the Arctic /N-Atlantic area.

• Establish a Nordic graduate school in cryosphere science and Earth System modelling

Features of the centres in the NCoE programme

• Each NCoE has partners from all five Nordic countries, one including Greenland

• The NCoE programme has participation from the other Arctic countries (Russia, USA, Canada) and the UK

• Each NCoE has about 17 partners • The NCoE programme involves about 340 researchers

• Open data policy within and between NCoE’s

If the future becomes like the pastThe horrors of the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM)

Isfjorden viewed from Longyearbyen towards Pyramiden some 50 Million years

ago (pCO2 = 2000ppm)

(Nathorst 1910, Backman and Moran 2009)