The Stability of Arctic Shelf Sea Dynamics and Freshwater Budget in the Light of Global Change.

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The general intention of this proposal is to bring together mathematicians and physical oceanographers in order to increase the exchange of knowledge for numerical ocean modeling and analysis of ocean model results. The proposal is based on previous DFG-projects on bi-lateral cooperation between the Institute for Oceanography, University Hamburg (IfO-UH) and the Institute for Numerical Mathematics (RAS) Moscow (IfNM-Moscow). The overall topic of the planned cooperation is the stability of Arctic Shelf Sea dynamics and freshwater budgets in the light of global change. According to recent IPCC studies, global warming will intensively affect the Arctic environment, in particular the Eurasian Arctic Shelf Seas (Barents, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian and Chukchi Sea), which are characterized by large river water runoff and ice formation. Both processes form the basis for the freshwater export in liquid or solid form (sea ice) to the Arctic Ocean and North Atlantic. It can be expected that changes in the freshwater supply due to global warming will inevitably affect the Arctic Ocean s hydrography and the global thermo-haline circulation. The proposal of IfO-UH has its focus on the investigation of the freshwater budget of Arctic Shelf Seas, using an existing and validated coupled ice-ocean model of the Kara Sea. Among the vast Eurasian shelf areas, this shelf sea prooved to be an ideal and representative study area, because it provides a semi-enclosed model domain, it receives one third of the total Arctic runoff and it is the second largest ice export region following the Laptev Sea. Main scientific goal of the project is to quantify the freshwater budget of the Kara Sea in terms of sea ice and liquid freshwater export and to assess trends and variability. Specific goals are to investigate the stability of the dynamics and the freshwater budget with respect to global warming and to evaluate possible trends and environmental consequences on regional scales. The results shall contribute to ongoing discussions on climate change in the northern hemisphere. The planned German-Russian cooperation serves to exchange and compare numerical model results, to apply and evaluate innovative data analyzing methods and to explore the limits of model-derived findings. The project shall bring together in particular young scientists: PhD students from each institute will be exchanged and work for limited time at the partner institute in order to increase the knowledge on different new techniques and methods.