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The Environment of the Arctic: Climate, Ocean and Sea Ice (tea-cosi)

北极环境：气候、海洋和海冰 (tea-cosi)

基本信息

批准号：
NE/I029226/1
负责人：
Tom Rippeth
金额：
$ 32.56万
依托单位：
Bangor University
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2011
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2011 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FI029226%2F1
关键词：
Environment Arctic Climate Ocean Sea

项目摘要

Look at a map of the world and find the Shetland Islands. Follow the 60 degrees north latitude circle eastwards. You pass through St. Petersburg, the Ural Mountains, Siberia, the Bering Sea, Alaska, northern Canada, the southern tip of Greenland, then back to the Shetlands. All these places are cold, harsh environments, particularly in winter, except the Shetlands, which is wet and windy but quite mild all year. This is because in the UK we benefit from heat brought northwards by the Atlantic Ocean in a current called the Conveyor Belt. This current is driven by surface water being made to sink by the extreme cold in and around the Arctic. It returns southwards through the Atlantic at great depths. Scientists think it is possible that the Conveyor Belt could slow down or stop, and if it did, the UK would get much colder.We know the planet has been warming for the last century or more, and we think this is due to the Greenhouse Effect. Burning fossil fuels puts a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which stops heat from leaving the Earth, like the glass in a greenhouse. In a warming world, ice melts faster, and there is a lot of ice on the Earth: ice caps on Greenland and Antarctica, sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans, glaciers in high mountains. And we know that the Arctic is the fastest-warming part of the planet. This causes extra amounts of fresh water to flow into the oceans. Now this fresh water can affect the Conveyor Belt by acting like a lid of water too light to sink, so the Conveyor Belt stops.What is the chance of this happening? We do not know, because there is much we do not understand about how the Arctic Ocean works. You need a powerful icebreaker to get into the Arctic Ocean, and that's only really possible in the summer, because in winter the sea ice thickens and the weather is bad. Scientists all over the world agree that the Arctic Ocean is important because it contains a lot of freshwater, which is why, although it is difficult to make measurements in the Arctic, the UK's Natural Environment Research Council has decided to fund a programme of scientific research in the Arctic.We want to be able to make better predictions of how the Arctic climate will change during the 21st century, so this project will help improve our ability to make these predictions. We will do this by improving the way that computer models of the Earth's climate represent the Arctic. We are going to treat the Arctic Ocean as a box, with a top, a bottom, sides and an interior, and we're going to examine all these parts of the box using measurements from space, from ships, from instruments moored to the sea bed, and from robotic sensors attached to drifting sea ice. We'll use all these measurements together to improve the scientific equations within the computer models, and then we'll run the models into the future to create better predictions not just of the Arctic, but of how changes in the Arctic might influence UK, European and global climate. With better predictions, we can make better plans for the future.

在世界地图上找到设得兰群岛。沿北纬60度圈向东。你会经过彼得堡、乌拉尔山脉、西伯利亚、白令海、阿拉斯加、加拿大北方、格陵兰岛南端，然后回到设得兰群岛。所有这些地方都是寒冷，恶劣的环境，特别是在冬季，除了设得兰群岛，这是潮湿和多风，但相当温和的全年。这是因为在英国，我们受益于大西洋向北输送的热量，这种热量被称为传送带。这股洋流是由北极及其周边地区的极寒天气导致的地表水下沉所驱动的。它在大西洋深处向南返回。科学家们认为传送带可能会减速或停止，如果真的如此，英国会变得更冷。我们知道地球在上个世纪或更多的时间里一直在变暖，我们认为这是由于温室效应。燃烧化石燃料会将大量二氧化碳排放到大气中，这就像温室里的玻璃一样阻止热量离开地球。在一个变暖的世界里，冰融化得更快，地球上有很多冰：格陵兰岛和南极洲的冰盖，北极和南极海洋的海冰，高山上的冰川。我们知道北极是地球上变暖最快的地区。这导致额外的淡水流入海洋。现在这些淡水会影响传送带，就像一个水盖，太轻而不能下沉，所以传送带停止了。这种情况发生的概率是多少？我们不知道，因为我们对北冰洋的运作方式有很多不了解。你需要一艘强大的破冰船才能进入北冰洋，而这只有在夏天才有可能，因为冬天海冰会变厚，天气也很糟糕。全世界的科学家都认为北冰洋很重要，因为它含有大量的淡水，这就是为什么尽管在北极进行测量很困难，但英国自然环境研究理事会还是决定资助一项北极科学研究计划。我们希望能够更好地预测北极气候在21世纪将如何变化，所以这个项目将帮助我们提高预测的能力。我们将通过改进地球气候的计算机模型代表北极的方式来做到这一点。我们将把北冰洋看作一个盒子，有顶部、底部、侧面和内部，我们将检查盒子的所有这些部分，使用来自太空、船只、停泊在海床上的仪器以及附着在漂浮海冰上的机器人传感器的测量结果。我们将使用所有这些测量数据来改进计算机模型中的科学方程，然后我们将运行模型到未来，不仅对北极进行更好的预测，而且对北极的变化如何影响英国，欧洲和全球气候进行更好的预测。有了更好的预测，我们可以为未来制定更好的计划。