CCPortal
Climate Change in the Southern Hemisphere Extratropics
项目编号0735056
Alexander Hall
项目主持机构University of California-Los Angeles
开始日期2007-09-01
结束日期2011-08-31
英文摘要The region of the Southern Ocean is important for the global climate, because a large fraction of anthropogenic carbon dioxide is believed to enter the ocean in this region and because the growth or ablation of Antarctic ice sheets depends sensitively on the climate of the surrounding ocean. The climate dynamics of the Southern Ocean are distinguished by a high equilibrium sensitivity to greenhouse forcing, because of sea-ice feedbacks, a slow approach to equilibrium, because of the strong coupling to the deep ocean, and exceptionally strong internal variability associated with the Southern annular mode.

Under prior support, Hall's group developed techniques for understanding the mechanisms for and constraining the strength of snow-albedo feedback in Northern Hemisphere land areas. Here they will apply similar methods to analyzing the climate feedbacks in the Southern Ocean as represented in global climate models (GCMs). The relevant feedbacks are those acting on the shortwave radiation budget, namely cloud and sea-ice albedo feedbacks, those acting on the long-wave radiation, and those associated with climate changes elsewhere on the planet. The ice-albedo feedback can be further decomposed into effects associated with changes in ice area and in ice thickness. The latter has the interesting property that a change in ice thickness during the cold season produces a change in surface temperature during the melting season.

They will calculate the energy budgets over this region for a number of climate models, comparing present-day simulations with those of a future warmer climate. The results will be used to compute the various feedbacks and to relate the strengths of these feedbacks to differences in the climate sensitivity of the different models. The mechanisms involved in these feedbacks will be determined by analyzing the responses of sea-ice albedo to climate change as well as the changes in planetary albedo, due to changes in cloud cover, associated with changes in sea ice. Cloud behavior will be compared with observations obtained from satellite cloud climatologies. The validity of surface albedo feedbacks in the models will be determined by comparing observed and simulated ice-albedo feedbacks for the seasonal cycle.

Additionally they will analyze the nature and mechanisms for internal variability in the Southern Ocean region and will use these results to attempt to determine whether recent climate trends in this region are consistent with internal variability. The results of the studies of equilibrium sensitivity and those of internal variability will be synthesized in an analysis of the transient climate change in the Southern Ocean region. The times at which different models exhibit the emergence of a clearly externally forced change will be determined, and the reasons for model differences in these emergence times will be studied. The results will be used to suggest the model improvements that are needed to produce more reliable projections of future climate in the Southern Ocean.

Broader impacts of this work include its potential to narrow the spread among model projections of climate change and, therefore, to increase confidence in estimates of the ocean uptake of carbon dioxide and the risk of significant melting of the Antarctic ice sheets. Hall will teach a freshman seminar on the "Fate of the Antarctic Ice Sheet." The project will support the training of a postdoctoral fellow and a graduate student.
学科分类08 - 地球科学;0805 - 大气科学
资助机构US-NSF
项目经费371259
项目类型Continuing grant
国家US
语种英语
文献类型项目
条目标识符http://gcip.llas.ac.cn/handle/2XKMVOVA/72612
推荐引用方式
GB/T 7714
Alexander Hall.Climate Change in the Southern Hemisphere Extratropics.2007.
条目包含的文件
条目无相关文件。
个性服务
推荐该条目
保存到收藏夹
导出为Endnote文件
谷歌学术
谷歌学术中相似的文章
[Alexander Hall]的文章
百度学术
百度学术中相似的文章
[Alexander Hall]的文章
必应学术
必应学术中相似的文章
[Alexander Hall]的文章
相关权益政策
暂无数据
收藏/分享

除非特别说明,本系统中所有内容都受版权保护,并保留所有权利。