Project Description
The Arctic is warming almost 4 times faster than the rest of the globe. Yet, how Arctic climate change will evolve remains highly uncertain, as there are large discrepancies in the projections from different climate models. At the heart of this uncertainty is our poor understanding of the aerosol-cloud interactions in the Arctic and thus their poor representation in the climate models. The cloud-aerosol puzzle is a rather complex problem, affected by several physical and chemical processes that span various scales. This is particularly true when it comes to the role of marine aerosols in the cloud lifecycle: the changing clouds contribute to changes in sea-ice extent and ocean temperature, which further impact marine biology. At the same time, changes in the marine biological activity result in modified marine aerosol fluxes that can alter cloud characteristics. To quantify these complex interactions, the QuIESCENT conference aims to gather Arctic atmospheric and marine scientists to (a) exchange knowledge and (b) work together to establish a coordinated plan on how to address these critical research questions. Finally, in the context of the fourth International Conference on Arctic Research Planning (ICARP IV) and the ongoing planning for the International Polar Year 2032-2033 (IPY32), QuiESCENT aims to address two main objectives: (a) to hierarchise our knowledge gaps in cloud-aerosol interactions and suggest research activities to address them in field and laboratory experiments and (b) propose modeling strategies to improve the efficiency of the knowledge transfer from observations to atmospheric models.
Date and Location
22-24 October 2024 | Lausanne, Switzerland
IASC Working Groups funding the project
- Atmosphere WG
- Marine WG
Project Lead
Georgia Sotiropoulou, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland and University of Athens, Greece
Year funded by IASC
2024