Final Project Report
The 2022 ISMASS Workshop on “Ice Sheets: Weather versus Climate” was held in Reykjavik, Iceland, on 23-24 August 2022, as an affiliated/special session of the CRYOSPHERE 2022 symposium.
The workshop explored the degree to which short-term fluctuations and extreme events in the ice sheets (both Greenland and Antarctica) in the last two decades reflect their longer-term evolution and response to ongoing climate change. It considered the interplay of forcings from the atmosphere and ocean and their interactions with ice-sheet changes on timescales of days to centuries. It also included discussion of recent innovations and recommendations for the next few years that are required in observations, process studies and modelling efforts to make further major breakthroughs in understanding how ice sheets change and the resulting local to global impacts: for example in sea-level rise. The workshop consisted of a mix of invited keynote talks and panel/discussion sessions which addressed these crucial issues from a multi-disciplinary perspective.
We had a superb line-up of speakers (an excellent and diverse range of world-leading and emerging researchers) on a very relevant topic that attracted more than 80 participants. We also had a very lively and fruitful discussion session on the final morning. The workshop lead organiser Edward Hanna worked closely with local organiser Thorsteinn Thorsteinsson (the main organiser of the CRYOSPHERE 2022 symposium), which created important synergies with shared infrastructure and speakers.
We note the strong engagement of a diverse group of Early Career Researchers (ECR) contributing to the workshop. With help of our sponsors (IASC, CliC and SCAR), we supported the travel costs of seven Early Career Researcher participants and one dedicated ECR (Aakriti Srivastava) on the organising committee, all selected in collaboration with APECS. Many other ECRs chose to participate, giving an overall well-balanced and inclusive demographic.
As a key outcome of the workshop, we are currently working on a high-impact paper for the broad community (scientists, educators, early-career researchers, policymakers and funding agencies etc.), which will be centred around the outcomes of the workshop: for example, key uncertainties and priorities for further work in observations, models and process studies that will enable us to significantly improve projections of future ice-sheet mass changes and their contribution to global sea-level rise by 2100. Although the paper’s exact contents have yet to be confirmed, it is also envisaged that it should summarise related key elements of what recent and past ice-sheet behaviour tells us about ice-sheet sensitivity to ongoing climate change (ice sheet “weather” versus “climate”).
We gratefully acknowledge co-sponsorship from IASC and SCAR as well as CliC, and Edward Hanna would like to thank the other members of the organising committee (Guðfinna Aðalgeirsdóttir, Heiko Goelzer, Frank Pattyn, Catherine Ritz, Aakriti Srivastava, Thorsteinn Thorsteinsson).
Please see workshop website for the meeting programme: https://climate-cryosphere.org/ismass-workshop-ice-sheets-weather-vs-climate/
Date and Location
23 – 24 August 2022 in Reykjavik, Iceland
IASC Working Groups funding the project
- Atmosphere WG
- Cryosphere WG
- Marine WG
Project Lead
Edward Hanna (University of Lincoln, United Kingdom)
Year funded by IASC
2022
Project Status
Completed