Climate and Glacier Variations in Scandinavia

这是华盛顿大学和斯德哥尔摩大学的首席研究人员共同提出的一项建议。首席调查员将调查北大西洋气候模式变化与挪威和瑞典冰川之间的关系。他们将把重点放在斯堪的纳维亚的西海岸，原因有三。首先，与气候变化有关的冰川的未来对区域水文学和全球海平面具有重要影响。其次，从历史上看，显著的冰川波动表明，该地区对气候异常高度敏感。冬季气候由一种被称为北半球环状模式(NAM)的大尺度气候模式主导，这种模式取决于极地夜间急流的强度。北冰洋的变化对斯堪的纳维亚沿岸的影响尤其强烈；对冰川记录的分析有可能极大地改善对北冰洋现在和过去行为的了解。第三，增进对该区域气候的了解也可能是帮助解决有关温盐环流在自然气候变异性中的作用的悬而未决问题的关键。他们的方法是利用斯堪的纳维亚冰川现有的一套高分辨率测量，以及过去50年可用的网格化大气环境预测中心/国家大气研究中心(NCEP/NCAR)再分析数据。具体地说，他们将1)通过应用其得到充分验证的模型和NCEP/NCAR再分析数据，建立气候和冰川之间的现代(过去50年)关系；2)利用气候-冰川响应的统计数据，推导出可能的气候条件，这些条件将产生小冰期斯堪的纳维亚地区已知的冰川；以及3)利用这些统计数据，在未来可能的气候情景下，调查潜在的冰川变化。定量了解气候和冰川之间的相互作用很重要，原因有两个。首先，过去冰川波动的记录可以帮助重建过去的气候模式。第二，面对气候变化，冰川的未来对海平面和水文学具有重要的全球影响。这项研究涉及与华盛顿大学和斯德哥尔摩大学的首席研究人员合作，因此它将促进国际合作。该研究还将为地球和空间科学研究生提供核心教育，重点是气候和冰川学，该学生将从接触国际社会中受益。

ABSTRACTOPP-0240861ConwayThis is a collaborative proposal by Principal Investigators at the Universities of Washington and Stockholm. The Principal Investigators will investigate relationships between variations of climate patterns in the North Atlantic and glaciers in Norway and Sweden. They will focus on the west coast of Scandinavia for three reasons. First, the future of the glaciers in relation to climate change has important consequences for regional hydrology and global sea level. Second, historically, pronounced glacial fluctuations suggest that the region is highly sensitive to climate anomalies. Winter climate in the is dominated by a large-scale climate pattern known as the Northern Hemisphere annular mode (NAM) that depends on the strength of the polar night jet stream. Variations in the NAM have a particularly strong effect along coastal Scandinavia; analysis of the glacial record has potential to greatly improve understanding of present and past behavior of the NAM. Third, an improved understanding of the climate of the region may also be key for helping to resolve outstanding issues concerning the role of the thermohaline circulation in natural climate variability. Their approach is to make use of the existing suite of high-resolution measurements that have been made on the glaciers of Scandinavia, and gridded atmospheric National Center for Environmental Prediction/National Centers for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) reanalysis) data that are available for the last 50 years. Specifically, they will 1) establish modern (past 50 years) relationships between climate and glaciers by applying their well-proven models and the NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis data; 2) use the statistics of climate-glacier response to derive possible climate conditions that would produce glaciers of the extent known to exist in Scandinavia during the Little Ice Age; and 3) use the statistics to investigate potential glacier changes under future possible climate scenarios. Quantitative understanding of interactions between climate and glaciers is important for two reasons. First, the record of past glacier fluctuations can be used to help reconstruct past patterns of climate. Second, the future of glaciers in the face of climate change has important and global consequences for sea level and hydrology. This research involves collaboration with Principal Investigators at the Universities of Washington and Stockholm, so it will foster international co-operation. The research will also provide core education for a graduate student in Earth and Space Sciences with an emphasis in climate and glaciology and the student will benefit from exposure to the international community.