Arctic climate change: the vital role of pollution and climate feedbacks

北极的气候变化比地球上任何其他地区都要快。尽管温室气体是全球变暖的主要原因，但北极地区气温的快速上升和海冰的季节性减少有着更为复杂的解释。空气污染（气溶胶）的变化和涉及气溶胶、云和海冰的当地反馈是重要的过程，但它们的影响在气候模式中表现得非常差。这个项目旨在提高我们对气溶胶和云过程如何影响北极气候变化的理解。这项研究将包括运行先进的、高分辨率的气溶胶和云模型，范围从几米到全球。模式模拟结合最近广泛的观测，将用于了解来自空气污染的气溶胶如何改变云的气候效应，以及来自海冰退缩的自然来源的气溶胶的变化。我们对气候模型的理解的提高将会影响到英国气候模型的改进，为学生提供机会，为改进北极气候预测做出贡献。当几个国际倡议和重大项目正在协调北极研究计划并进行可用于测试气候模型的广泛测量时，博士学位为参与北极研究提供了一个很好的机会。

The climate of the Arctic is changing faster than any other region of the planet. Although greenhouse gases are the main driver of global warming, the particularly rapid rise in temperature and seasonal loss of sea ice in the Arctic have a more complex explanation. Changes in air pollution (aerosols) and local feedbacks involving aerosols, clouds and sea ice are important processes, but their effects are very poorly represented in climate models. This project aims to improve our understanding of how aerosol and cloud processes influence climate change in the Arctic. The research will involve running advanced, high-resolution aerosol and cloud models from the scale of a few metres up to the global scale. Model simulations combined with extensive recent observations will be used to understand how the climatic effects of clouds are altered by aerosols from air pollution as well as changes in aerosol from natural sources as sea ice retreats. Improvement in our understanding will then feed through to improvements in the UK climate model, providing the opportunity for the student to contribute to improved Arctic climate projections. The PhD provides a great opportunity to become involved in Arctic research at a time when several international initiatives and major projects are coordinating programmes of Arctic research and making extensive measurements that can be used to test climate models.