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Futures
•Scientific challenges
•Rapid climate change
•The blue Arctic
•Political/social
•The international dimension
•Norway’s key contributions
•Long-term vs short-term research
Rapid climate change
We still don’t know
•What caused it in the past
•Why the glacial state is more prone to large
changes than the interglacial
Some promising lines of enquiry have emerged
•Arctic fresh water budget
•Mixing/convection in the high-latitude seas
•relation to atmospheric forcing, NAO etc.
•Large-scale atmospheric forcing
•interbasin water vapour transport.
•Global thermohaline structure
•Relation of 1.5 ka cycle to solar forcing
Rapid climate change
There are signs of change in the THC…
•Warming and Freshening of the Nordic Seas
and Northernmost Atlantic
•Change in convection patterns
•Change in overflows
The blue Arctic
Within our children’s lifetime:
•The Arctic ocean may be largely ice-free in
summer.
•The extent of permanent snow cover on land in the
high Arctic will have greatly diminshed.
The blue Arctic
•The lower albedo will alter the energy balance of
the Arctic and of the planet as a whole.
The circulation patterns of the Arctic and
surrounding seas will probably change.
•The “Super-interglacial” climate, with a single
polar cap will be unlike any climate in the last
several million years.
•How will this change occur? What will the
impacts be on this part of the world?
Political and social challenges
Understanding Arctic climate change is part
of the larger challenge of understanding the
Earth system.
•The system has a complexity on a par with a
living organism (c.f J. E. Lovelock)
•Understanding causes of climate change may
be as difficult as understanding the causes
of cancer (cf W. S. Broecker) .
•Each important sub-system must be understood.
•Emergent properties of the whole are more than
the sum of the parts.
Explaining to politicians and public
•Emphasise the long-term nature of the
problem, but...
•Show that advances are being made in the short
term.
•Identify key contributions from Norway.
•Ensure the program is embedded in an
international effort.
Norway’s key contributions?
Observations of, and experience in, the
Nordic Seas and Arctic.
Interpretation of climatology
Paleo-studies.
Innovative and high-resolution modelling.