Project Summary
Polar regions are particularly sensitive to climate change due to their vulnerability to temperature fluctuations. However, our understanding of the interconnected climate system, especially during polar winter, is still limited. Harsh weather conditions and logistical challenges make it extremely difficult to conduct in-person field measurements, which hinders our study of winter climate. Nevertheless, polar winter is a crucial period for processes such as sea ice growth, snow accumulation, atmospheric chemistry and dynamics. Current climate models struggle to accurately represent polar climate, particularly during winter when cloud cover is at its lowest and sea salt aerosol is at its highest. These significant discrepancies affect the reliability of using models to predict and project the future of the Arctic and Antarctica. While previous studies have mainly focused on the summer, it is essential to investigate the winter to improve the completeness of our understanding of the entire climate. To address this, we propose a workshop on "Polar Winter Climate and Processes" to bring together diverse research communities in the fields of physical, chemical, and biogeochemical processes in the coupled atmosphere, cryosphere, marine, and terrestrial systems. The workshop aims to facilitate the exchange of ideas, present recent findings, and identify knowledge gaps in our understanding of the entire climate system.
Date and Location
23-25 April 2025 I British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK
IASC Working Group funding the Project:
AWG
Project Leaders:
Xin Yang British Antarctic Survey, NERC, Cambridge, UK and Xiangdong Zhang North Carolina State University, US
Year funded by IASC:
2024