Climate relevant interactions and feedbacks: global and regional modelling for the Arctic and Arctic seas (CRiceS-ICMMG, 2021-2023)

Research project led by PEEX collaborating partner – the Institute of Computational Mathematics and Mathematical Geophysics, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences (ICMMG SB RAS, Novosibirsk, Russia) team (experts in numerical modelling of climate system and its components with the focus on Arctic region, subaqueous permafrost and methane hydrates, inverse and ill-posed problems in socio-economical modelling) with involvement of students from the Novosibirsk State University – is the Russian Sister Project to the EU Horizon-2020 CRiceS project (Climate Relevant interactions and feedbacks: the key role of sea ice and Snow in the polar and global climate system; 2021-2025; https://www.crices-h2020.eu) coordinated by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (France) and the Finnish Meteorological Institute (Finland).

The polar regions are experiencing rapid and unprecedented changes due to global climate change caused by anthropogenic activities. The 21st century projections show substantial decrease of sea ice in polar domains, which are expected to impact people in the Arctic and also society beyond polar regions. It is crucial to understand a role of polar processes, feedbacks in polar and global climate. One of the main ways to improve our understanding of environmental change is to combine knowledge from different disciplines in a coordinated way and to enhance the modelling of impacts that these regions have for the global climate.

Russian Sister project main goal: to improve model predictions describing role of polar processes in the climate system – oceans/seas, ice/snow, and atmosphere – with focus on global and regional modelling for the Arctic and Russian Arctic seas.

Main objective: to improve a set of the ICMMG’s climate models (such as PlaSim-ICMMG, SibCIOM, SibPOM, INMCM-SibCIOM) of different complexity in description of ocean/sea-ice/snow-atmosphere processes and interactions and covering different Arctic seas geographical regions.

Main tasks:

(1) Analyse climatic changes occurred during the last century based on long-term observations in the polar regions, identification of atmospheric circulation modes, their trends and construction of synthesized forcing for tests on sensitivity of the climate system relative to disturbances.

(2) Perform numerical experiments (using the SibCIOM model for the “historical” period) and analyse results, including analysis of a sensitivity of the climate system in relation to individual disturbances of circulation modes.

(3) Analyse circulation of the Russian Arctic seas and their variability (depending on climatic indices such as NAO – North Atlantic Oscillation, PDO – Pacific Decadal Oscillation, AO – Arctic Oscillation).

(4) Perform numerical experiments with the PlaSim-ICMMG climate system model, including testing (and verification) of new and improved parameterizations of processes in polar latitudes developed in the CRiceS project.

(5) Perform numerical experiments with the regional models of the Arctic seas (SibPOM), with testing and verifying parameterizations.

(6) Identify main circulation modes for the Arctic region and for individual seas and their interconnections, as well as on analysis of the main trends in the Arctic climate in the last century and in the future. It will be done based on results of the IPCC scenario calculations and on basis of resulting decomposition of the state into modes (PliSim-ICMMG, SibCIOM).

(7) Identify relationship between climatic trends and reduction of the Arctic ice cover with a rate of degradation of subaqueous permafrost and methane emissions into the atmosphere.

(8) Perform numerical reproduction of typical circulation patterns for the Arctic seas using a series of high-resolution SibPOM regional models and analysis of the simulation results obtained.

(9) Test new Russian model of the Earth’s climate system (INMCM- SibCIOM), elaborated on a basis of existing INMCM (Institute of Numerical Mathematics Climate Model) model developed at the INM RAS, including the coupled ocean and ice model SibCIOM and using improved/ new parameterizations developed in the CRiceS project. A series of verification experiments will help to compare with original version and to develop a set of recommendations for improvements, including modelling strategy on usage of detailed descriptions of processes in polar latitudes.

(10) Contribute with ICMMG modelling results (for the Arctic and Arctic Russian seas) to the CRicesS project database for cross-comparison with results from other models utilized by different Partners in the CRiceS. The project promotes the open data access policy and FAIR principles to all generated data by Partners. A developed interface and a set of services will allow direct and remote work with the modelling results.

(11) Create and implement integral mathematical models connecting socio-economic processes with climate and biosphere. Based on the solution of inverse problems, the identification of the main parameters of these models will be carried out according to observational data over the past 50 years. This will allow assessing the change in parameters over time, constructing various scenarios taking into account a desired direction of economic development, and also assessing the consequences of predicted changes.

Contact Information

Project Partners/ Teams

  • ICMMG SB RAS – Institute of Computational Mathematics and Mathematical Geophysics, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia
  • European, Canadian, Indian and South African Partners of the Horizon-2020 CRiceS project (https://www.crices-h2020.eu)