Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

Collaborative Research: Towards Advanced Understanding and Predictive Capability of Climate Change in the Arctic using a High-Resolution Regional Arctic Climate System Model

The primary science objective of this project is to synthesize understanding of past and present changes in Arctic climate and to improve decadal to centennial prediction of future regimes of Arctic climate system and their potential effects on global climate. A hierarchy of high-resolution Arctic climate model experiments, optimized for advanced parallel computers, will be performed to provide insight into the operation of Arctic climate that is not attainable with either individual regional component or global climate model experiments.

In particular, we will develop and use a high-resolution regional Arctic climate system model (RACM) to:
• determine and quantify the coupled Arctic climate system processes responsible for the recent observed and future projected changes in the ice pack, regional hydrological cycle, and freshwater export into the North Atlantic.
• assess decadal system scenarios of a seasonally / partially ice free Arctic Ocean, including their timing
• address and improve upon the general circulation model (GCM) limitations in predicting Arctic climate through the identification of physical and numerical requirements of future GCMs.

This research is supported by the Department of Energy.

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Project Participants

University of Colorado
John Cassano
Matt Higgins

Naval Postgraduate School
Wieslaw Maslowski

Iowa State University
William Gutowski

University of Washington
Dennis Lettenmaier