Research

Earth, Atmosphere & Environment Sciences

Title :	Climate Relevant interactions and feedbacks: the key role of sea ice and Snow in the polar and global climate system (CRiceS)
Area of research :	Earth, Atmosphere & Environment Sciences
Focus area :	Cryosphere
Principal Investigator :	Dr. Sabu P., Scientist-D, NCPOR, Goa

Details

Executive Summary :

The polar regions are experiencing some of the most rapid climate changes on Earth, manifesting in dramitic warming, sea ice loss at both the poles, and changing ocean, The model's ability to reproduce the polar ocean-ice/snow-atmosphere behaviour, including the physical sea ice changes, remains limited. This hinders our ability to predict polar-mid-latitude interactions and teleconnections, Also, in a climate-change scenario, the interconnected physical and chemical ocean-ice/snow-atmosphere system is now tansitioning to an unprecedented and uncertain regime, including the seasonally ice-free conditions in Antartica at present and by mid-century in the Arctic. Therefore, understanding the physical and chemical processess in the Polar Regions is essential for understanding the climate changes and responding to its effects in the polar aread and beyond. The proposed CRiceS project aims to describe the high-latiture underlying processes which are currently limited by the knowledge of the processess that govern tranport and exchange of heat, mass, and momentum;aeosols and clouds; biogeochemical cycles/greenhouse gas exchanges; and fully coupled system behaviour. The overall concept of the CRiceS is organized in four scientific core themes, and they are (i) Heat and mass exchanges, (ii) Aerosols and Clouds, (iii) Biogeochemical cycles/greenhouse gas exchanges, and (iv Integrated system understanding.