Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - APPLICATE (Advanced Prediction in Polar regions and beyond: Modelling, observing system design and LInkages associated with ArctiC ClimATE change)

Teaser

The weather and climate of the Arctic have been changing rapidly with profound transformations projected to continue in the next decades. These changes provide opportunities, but they also expose society to major risks especially for indigenous communities. Anthropogenic...

Summary

The weather and climate of the Arctic have been changing rapidly with profound transformations projected to continue in the next decades. These changes provide opportunities, but they also expose society to major risks especially for indigenous communities. Anthropogenic climate change is amplified in the Arctic with possible impact on the weather and climate in mid-latitudes, including in Europe. Our predictive capacity in the Arctic across time scales is however still limited, constraining effective decision-making processes. APPLICATE aims at developing enhanced predictive capacity for weather and climate in the Arctic and beyond, and to determine the influence of Arctic climate change on Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes.
APPLICATE aims at enhancing predictive capacity from daily to multi-decadal time scales and thus responds to the needs of the majority of stakeholders for enhanced predictions from weather to climate time scales. APPLICATE will improve stakeholders’ capacity to adapt to climate change through a comprehensive analysis of the latest generation of climate models, which contribute to the next IPCC assessment report. APPLICATE aims to improve the trustworthiness of climate change projections through an improved representation of important Arctic processes in climate models. APPLICATE will also contribute to narrowing the uncertainty of climate change projections leading to greater adaptation capacity.
APPLICATE main objectives include:
Observationally constrain models
Develop enhanced weather and climate models
Determine the impact of Arctic climate change on mid latitudes
Contribute to the design of the future Arctic observing system
Enhance the capacity to predict Northern Hemisphere weather and climate
Transfer of knowledge to stakeholders and early career scientists

Work performed

The APPLICATE project has achieved several key results in its first 18-months phase, including:
1. Development of process-based metrics and diagnostics for the Arctic for model evaluation, and metrics and diagnostics relevant for the stakeholders and users.
2. Development of a novel coupled Single Column Model, a vertical column of a global climate model that extends from the deep ocean through the ice-covered ocean surface to the atmosphere, to advance physical parameterisation in weather and climate models.
3. Development of a protocol for coordinated multi-model experiments on Polar Amplification, an unprecedented set of atmosphere only and coupled atmosphere-ocean multi-model experiments to constrain projections of future climate change in the polar regions and associated global climate impacts.
4. A set of Observing System Experiments, in which certain observations are withheld in weather predictions, have been designed that will reveal the role played by the different observation types in improving weather predictions in the Arctic and beyond, to give recommendations for the design of future observing systems in the Arctic.
5. A reference framework on the skill of Arctic prediction systems and related linkages has been established. APPLICATE is producing a reference data set for Arctic predictions and establishing an atlas of prediction skill giving a comprehensive status of state-of-the-art prediction system capabilities including time scales from hours to weeks, seasonal forecasts and climate predictions.
6. A special dataset for the Year of Polar Prediction has started, which includes the usual forecast data and additional parameters for research purposes.
7. Establishment of a User Group, composed of Arctic stakeholders, to produce usable and trustworthy predictive information for decision making.
8. The Polar Prediction School 2018, focused on weather and climate prediction in the polar regions, was held on the 17–27 April 2018 in Sweden and was attended by 30 international early career researchers.
9. APPLICATE joined the EU Arctic Cluster, a network of Europe-funded projects to provide policy-relevant information and supporting the EU in implementing its integrated policy for the Arctic. APPLICATE also contributed to implementing the Transatlantic Ocean Research Alliance with collaborators in the US and Canada.

Final results

APPLICATE has made significant advances in observationally constraining weather and climate models in the Arctic. APPLICATE has developed advanced metrics and diagnostics, targeting physical and user-relevant processes thereby supporting efforts in model evaluation. Furthermore, the concept of initial tendency and data assimilation increment diagnostics has been exploited in an Arctic context to determine errors in the representation of processes. APPLICATE is also exploring the concept of emergent constraints, to reduce the uncertainty of regional climate change projections for the Northern Hemisphere in upcoming IPCC reports.

APPLICATE has developed a single column model that allows to account for the full range of physical process interactions from the ocean through the ice and snow into the atmosphere. In this way, it is possible to take into account important coupled processes and exploit the full potential of new observational capacity. Furthermore, APPLICATE is making substantial progress in the development of next generation sea ice models so that long high-resolutions simulations with coupled climate models have become feasible. Ocean modelling is also progressing through the use of enhanced resolution allowing a better simulation of Arctic-Atlantic exchange processes. Novel concepts such as unstructured mesh approaches have been exploited that allow enhancing horizontal resolution in dynamically active regions.

APPLICATE is also significantly improving the fidelity of existing weather and climate prediction systems, from fundamental research on forecasting system development, covering daily to seasonal as well as multi-decadal time scales, to user-engagement and dissemination. Prediction systems will be enhanced by incorporating improved process representation, improved initialisation, increased resolution and novel ensemble generation techniques.

The work carried out within APPLICATE will have several impacts:
1. Improve capacity to predict the weather and climate of the Northern Hemisphere to better forecast extreme weather phenomena
2. Improve the capacity to respond to the impact of climatic change on the environment and human activities in the Arctic
3. Improve the capacity of climate models to represent Arctic warming and its impact on regional and global circulation
4. Improve the uptake of measurements from satellites
5. Lead to optimised observation systems for various modelling applications
6. Contribute to a robust and reliable forecasting framework that can help meteorological and climate services to deliver better predictions, including at sub-seasonal and seasonal time scales
7. Improve stakeholders’ capacity to adapt to climate change
8. Contribute to better servicing the economic sectors that rely on improved forecasting capacity
9. Contribute to the Year of Polar Prediction and IPCC scientific assessments, and to the Copernicus Climate Change services
10. Improve the professional skills and competences for those working and being trained to work within this subject area

Website & more info

More info: https://applicate.eu/.