Research

Greenland

Greenland is the second largest ice body on earth. In contrast to Antarctica, surface ablation is an important process on the ice sheet, due to the milder climate. As a result, the Greenland ice sheet is far more vulnerable for past and future climate changes than Antarctica. A significant deglaciation needs several thousands years of warm climate. Nevertheless, it is likely that the Greenland ice sheet faces in the current century a climate for which it is unstable. A significant and persistent contribution of the Greenland ice sheet to the global sea level rise is thus to be expected.

Antarctica

Antarctica is by far the most remote and hostile continent on earth. For example, it has no indigenous people. Continuous habitation started in 1957 in first International Polar Year. Not surprisingly, the understanding of the Antarctic climate is still not as comprehensive as for elsewhere on the globe. Meteorological observations are relatively sparse, most times covering short periods. Moreover, the harsh conditions complicate accurate observations of, for example, absolute humidity at minus 70 or snowfall during snowdrift events. Therefore, atmospheric climate models might be able to fill the gaps in our climate knowledge.

Regional atmospheric climate model

A regional atmospheric climate model is a very powerful tool for climate research. Only dealing with the area of interest, the parameterisations could be adjusted to represent as accurate as possible real world climate. The limited area allows a high spatial resolution, or many case studies.

Nevertheless, a regional climate model is not prefect. The covariance between the model weather and the observed weather depends largely on the quality of the host model. Parameterisations might be state-of-the-art, but still model output could be biased. The truth is out there...