Call for papers: CLIVAR-related sessions at vEGU21

The EGU General Assembly 2021 is going to be held virtually on 19-30 April. In preparation for the meeting, we have compiled a list of sessions that are relevant to the community and convened by CLIVAR Panels, Research Foci and community members. Abstract submission deadline: 13 January 2021 at 13:00 CET. The list of sessions is not intended to be exhaustive but to help digest the collection of the hundreds of sessions and events. If you would like to have your session(s) included in the list, please email to qian.zhao@clivar.org.

 

Ocean Model Development Panel

OS4.4 Numerical modelling of the ocean: new scientific advances in ocean models to foster exchanges within NEMO community and contribute to future developments

Convener: Claire Levy

Co-conveners: Mike Bell, Jerome Chanut, Julien Le Sommer, Dorotea Iovino

NEMO (Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean) is a state-of-the-art modelling framework of the ocean that includes components for the ocean dynamics, the sea-ice and the biogeochemistry, so as a nesting package allowing to set up zooms and a versatile data assimilation interface (see https://www.nemo-ocean.eu/).

NEMO is used by a large community in Europe and world-wide (~200 projects, ~100 publications each year) covering a wide range of applications: oceanographic research, operational oceanography, seasonal forecast and climate projections.

NEMO is in particular used in 6 Earth System Models within CMIP6 and in Copernicus Marine Services (CMEMS) model-based products.

The session will cover both research and operationnal activities contributing to new analysis, ideas and developments of ocean numerical models.

Presentations of results based on new NEMO functionalities and new NEMO model configurations are welcome.

OS4.2 Surface Waves, and Wave-Coupled Effects in Lower Atmosphere and Upper Ocean

Convener: Alexander Babanin

Co-conveners: Francisco J. Ocampo-Torres, Miguel Onorato, Fangli Qiao

We invite presentations on ocean surface waves, and wind-generated waves in particular, their dynamics, modelling and applications. This is a large topic of the physical oceanography in its own right, but it is also becoming clear that many large-scale geophysical processes are essentially coupled with the surface waves, and those include climate, weather, tropical cyclones, Marginal Ice Zone and other phenomena in the atmosphere and many issues of the upper-ocean mixing below the interface. This is a rapidly developing area of research and geophysical applications, and contributions on wave-coupled effects in the lower atmosphere and upper ocean are strongly encouraged.

 

Monsoons Panel

AS1.10 The global monsoons in current, future and palaeoclimates and their role in extreme weather and climate events

Convener: Jianping Li

Co-conveners: Roberta D'AgostinoECS, Kyung-Ja Ha, Pascal Terray, Andrew Turner

The global monsoon system and its regional monsoon components have profound impacts on society and are among the most complex phenomena involving coupled atmosphere-ocean-land interactions. Monsoons can cause severe floods and droughts in the tropics as well as undergoing climate variability on subseasonal, interannual and decadal or longer time scales. In addition to its profound local effects, monsoon variability is also associated with global-scale impacts since the energy released by monsoon systems can influence the global circulation. However, it is notoriously difficult to simulate and forecast the monsoons on temporal scales from numerical weather prediction (NWP), subseasonal-to-seasonal and interannual-to-decadal predictions, and longer timescale climate projections. A better understanding of monsoon physics and dynamics, with more accurate simulation, prediction and projection of monsoon systems is therefore of a great importance to society.

The combination of modern- and palaeo-monsoon research can help us better understand the fundamental nature of the monsoon and its variability. Comparisons of monsoon responses to large-scale forcings found in the palaeoclimate record can help us to understand how the monsoon will respond to changes in forcings in the future, potentially allowing us to constrain estimates of climate change. Similarly, the wealth of observations, reanalysis products and modelling work in the contemporary period can help us piece together data from point-proxy records of the past.

This session therefore invites presentations on all aspects of monsoon research in contemporary, future and palaeoclimate periods (observational, modeling, attribution, prediction and projection) from the natural and anthropogenic variability and predictability of the monsoon systems on multiple time scales, to the impact of monsoons on extreme weather and climate events (floods, droughts, tropical cyclones, heat waves, etc.), as well as the links between monsoons and global climate change and feedbacks with the biosphere. Theoretical works based on idealized planetary and ITCZ frameworks are also invited.

 

Indian Ocean Region Panel

OS1.5 Understanding the Indian Ocean's past, present, and future

Convener: Caroline Ummenhofer,

Co-conveners: Yan Du, Alejandra Sanchez-Franks, Jérôme Vialard

The Indian Ocean is unique among the other tropical ocean basins due to the seasonal reversal of monsoon winds and concurrent ocean currents, lack of steady easterlies that result in a relatively deep thermocline along the equator, low-latitude connection to the neighboring Pacific and a lack of northward heat export due to the Asian continent. These characteristics shape the Indian Ocean’s air-sea interactions, as well as its variability on (intra)seasonal, interannual, and decadal timescales. They also make the basin and its surrounding regions, which are home to a third of the global population, particularly vulnerable to anthropogenic climate change: robust trends in heat transport and freshwater fluxes have been observed in recent decades in the Indian Ocean and Maritime Continent region and 2019 marked one of the largest Indian Ocean Dipole events on record. Advances have recently been made in our understanding of the Indian Ocean’s circulation, interactions with adjacent ocean basins, and its role in regional and global climate. Nonetheless, significant gaps remain in understanding, observing, modeling, and predicting Indian Ocean variability and change across a range of timescales.

This session invites contributions based on observations, modelling, theory, and palaeo proxy reconstructions in the Indian Ocean that focus on recent and projected changes in Indian Ocean physical and biogeochemical properties and their impacts on ecological processes, interactions and exchanges between the Indian Ocean and other ocean basins, as well as links between Indian Ocean variability and monsoon systems across a range of timescales. In view of the large 2019 event, contributions on the Indian Ocean Dipole mechanisms and climate impacts, with a particular focus on extreme events, are particularly sought. We also welcome contributions that address research on the Indian Ocean grand challenges highlighted in the recent IndOOS Decadal Review, and as formulated by the Climate and Ocean: Variability, Predictability, and Change (CLIVAR), the Sustained Indian Ocean Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research (SIBER), the International Indian Ocean Expedition 2 (IIOE-2), and the Year of the Maritime Continent (YMC) programs.

 

Pacific Region Panel

CL2.13 ENSO and Tropical Basins Interactions: Dynamics, Predictability and Modelling

Convener: Dietmar Dommenget

Co-conveners: Antonietta Capotondi, Daniela Domeisen, Eric Guilyardi

ENSO and its interactions with other tropical basins are the dominant source of interannual climate variability in the tropics and across the globe. Understanding the dynamics, predictability, and impacts of ENSO and tropical basins interactions, and anticipating their future changes are thus of vital importance for society. This session invites contributions regarding all aspects of ENSO and tropical basins interactions, including: dynamics, multi-scale interactions; low frequency, decadal and paleo variability; theoretical approaches; ENSO diversity; global teleconnections; impacts on climate, society and ecosystems; seasonal forecasting and climate change projections of ENSO and its tropical basins interactions. Studies aimed at understanding ENSO and its tropical basins interactions in models of a range of complexity are especially welcomed, including analysis of CMIP model intercomparisons.

 

Northern Oceans Region Panel

OS1.3 Changes in the Arctic Ocean, sea ice and subarctic seas systems: Observations, Models and Perspectives

Convener: Yevgeny Aksenov

Co-conveners: Paul A. Dodd, Céline Heuzé, Krissy ReeveECS, Yufang Ye

The rapid decline of the Arctic sea ice in the last decade is a dramatic indicator of climate change. The Arctic sea ice cover is now thinner, weaker and drifts faster. Freak heatwaves are common. On land, the permafrost is dramatically thawing, glaciers are disappearing, and forest fires are raging. The ocean is also changing: the volume of freshwater stored in the Arctic has increased as have the inputs of coastal runoff from Siberia and Greenland and the exchanges with the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. As the global surface temperature rises, the Arctic Ocean is speculated to become seasonally ice-free by the mid 21st century, which prompts us to revisit our perceptions of the Arctic system as a whole. What could the Arctic Ocean look like in the future? How are the present changes in the Arctic going to affect and be affected by the lower latitudes? What aspects of the changing Arctic should observational, remote sensing and modelling programmes address in priority?

In this session, we invite contributions from a variety of studies on the recent past, present and future Arctic. We encourage submissions examining interactions between the ocean, atmosphere and sea ice, on emerging mechanisms and feedbacks in the Arctic and on how the Arctic influences the global ocean. Submissions with a focus on emerging cryospheric, oceanic and biogeochemical processes and their implications are particularly welcome.

The session promotes results from current Arctic programmes and discussions on future plans for Arctic Ocean modelling and measurement strategies, and encourages submissions on the first results from CMIP6 and the recently completed Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC). This session is cosponsored by the CLIVAR /CliC Northern Ocean Regional Panel (NORP) that aims to facilitate progress and identify scientific opportunities in (sub)Arctic ocean-sea-ice-atmosphere research.

 

Southern Ocean Region Panel

OS1.7 Under cover: The Southern Ocean’s connection to sea ice and ice shelves

Convener: Torge Martin

Co-conveners: Xylar Asay-Davis, Kaitlin NaughtenECS, Ralph Timmermann

In recent years the interaction between the ocean and the cryosphere in the Southern Ocean has become a major focus in climate research. Antarctic climate change has captured public attention, which has spawned a number of research questions, such as: Is Antarctic sea ice becoming more vulnerable in a changing climate? What controls the inflow of warm water into ice shelf cavities and what is the impact of enhanced meltwater outflow? What role do ice processes play in nutrient upwelling on the shelf? Recent advances in observational technology, data coverage, and modeling provide scientists with a better understanding of the mechanisms involving ice-ocean interactions in the far South. Processes on the Antarctic continental shelf have been identified as missing links between the cryosphere, the global atmosphere and the deep open ocean that need to be captured in large-scale and global model simulations.

This session calls for studies on physical and biogeochemical interactions between ice shelves, sea ice and the ocean. The ice-covered Southern Ocean and its role in the greater Antarctic climate system are of major interest. This includes work on all scales, from local to basin-scale to circumpolar. Studies based on in-situ observations and remote sensing as well as regional to global models are welcome. We particularly invite cross-disciplinary topics involving physical and biological oceanography, glaciology or biogeochemistry.

 

Regional Sea Level Change and Coastal Impacts GC

CL4.1 Sea level rise: past, present and future

Convener: Svetlana Jevrejeva

Co-conveners: Mélanie Becker, Marta Marcos, Aimée Slangen, Nadya Vinogradova

To address societal concerns over rising sea level and extreme events, understanding the contributions behind these changes is key to predict potential impacts of sea level change on coastal communities and global economy, and is recognized as one of the Grand Challenges of our time by the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP). To continue this discussion, we welcome contributions from the international sea level community that improve our knowledge of the past and present changes in sea level, extreme events, and flooding, and produce improved predictions of their future changes. We welcome studies on various drivers of sea level change and linkages between variability in sea level, heat and freshwater content, ocean dynamics, land subsidence from natural versus anthropogenic influences, and mass exchange between the land and the ocean associated with ice sheet and glacier mass loss and changes in the terrestrial water storage. Studies focusing on future sea level changes are also encouraged, as well as those discussing potential short-, medium-, and long-term impacts on coastal and deltaic environments, as well as the global oceans.

CR3.8 Bridging the gap between land-based cryosphere changes and local sea-level rise projections and impacts

Convener: Gael Durand

Co-conveners: Tamsin Edwards, Robert Nicholls

Sea-level rise (SLR) is highly variable in space and time, as it results from a combination of many processes working at different temporal and spatial scales. In the 20th century, SLR was mainly caused by oceanic thermal expansion and the mass loss of glaciers. In recent decades, however, the two ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland have increasingly contributed to SLR. As highlighted in the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment, the main uncertainty in projections of future SLR is our limited ability to model the dynamics of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets and robustly predict the potential emergence and rate of their collapse. Although the relative contribution of ice sheet mass loss to SLR will increase over the 21st Century, glaciers will continue to make a significant SLR contribution that must also be better quantified. Moreover, local SLR differs from global-mean change, so it is important to better understand and quantify the regional coastal implications in order to support relevant mitigation and adaptation strategies. This session aims at bridging the gap between scientific communities interested in projecting changes in the land-based cryosphere, with fully quantified uncertainties, in order to produce robust global, regional and local projections of SLR on timescales from decades to multi-centennial and their implications.

 

Tropical Basin Interaction RF

OS1.4 Tropical Atlantic climate: ocean processes, air-sea interactions, remote impacts, and climate change

Convener: Marta Martín-Rey

Co-conveners: Marie-Lou BacheleryECS, Peter Brandt, Noel Keenlyside, Alban Lazar

Observations and model simulations illustrate significant ocean variability and associated air-sea interactions in the tropical Atlantic basin from daily-to-decadal time scales. This session is devoted to the understanding of ocean dynamics in the tropical and subtropical Atlantic Ocean, its interaction with the overlying atmosphere from the equator to the mid-latitudes and its climate impacts on adjacent to remote areas.

Relevant processes in the ocean include upper and deep ocean circulation, eddies, tropical instability waves, warm pools, cold tongues and eastern boundary upwellings. We are interested in air-sea interactions related to both the seasonal cycle and the development of modes of variability from local to basin scale (e.g. the Meridional Mode, the Atlantic Niño, and the Benguela Niño). We welcome studies on wind variations related to the development of these modes, as well as studies on high-frequency events, such as marine heat waves, the Madden-Julian Oscillation, tropical cyclones and convective systems. Furthermore, we seek studies on climate change in the region, and also of the climatic impacts of change and variability on marine ecosystems. Finally, we are also interested in contributions examining the causes and impacts of systematic model errors in simulating the local to regional Atlantic climate.

Studies based on direct observations, reanalysis, reconstructions as well as model simulations are welcome.

 

Other related session(s)

OS4.3 Ocean Remote Sensing

Convener: Aida Alvera-Azcárate

Co-conveners: Craig Donlon, Christine Gommenginger, Guoqi Han, Tong Lee

Advanced remote sensing capabilities have provided unprecedented opportunities for monitoring and studying the ocean environment as well as improving ocean and climate predictions. Synthesis of remote sensing data with in situ measurements and ocean models have further enhanced the values of oceanic remote sensing measurements. This session provides a forum for interdisciplinary discussions of the latest advances in oceanographic remote sensing and the related applications and to promote collaborations.

We welcome contributions on all aspects of the oceanic remote sensing and the related applications. Topics for this session include but are not limited to: physical oceanography, marine biology and biogeochemistry, biophysical interaction, marine gravity and space geodesy, linkages of the ocean with the atmosphere, cryosphere, and hydrology, new instruments and techniques in ocean remote sensing, new mission concepts, development and evaluation of remote sensing products of the ocean, and improvements of models and forecasts using remote sensing data. Applications of multi-sensor observations to study ocean and climate processes and applications using international (virtual) constellations of satellites are particularly welcome.