Research project CG/DD1/09 (Research action CG)
Context
The main objective of the CLIMOD (CLImate MODelling) network project is to contribute to the international research effort leading to an improved understanding of the climate system and to a better assessment of the impact of human activities on the global and regional climates. Two main tools will serve this objective : modelling and data analysis.
Objectives
Four Belgian research teams participate to this project : the Global Climate Modelling Group (ASTR-GCMG) and Regional Climate Modelling Group (ASTR-RCMG) of the Institut d’Astronomie et de Géophysique Georges Lemaître, the Geografisch Instituut of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (GI), and the General Climatology Section of the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium (RMI-GCS).
Members of the CLIMOD network have at their disposal a coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model (AOGCM), the first and the only one in Belgium, a regional atmospheric model (RegAM), and a Greenland ice-sheet model (GISM). Each of these complex three-dimensional models is run by a different team in a different location. At the end of the project, an advanced "community model", to which each team will have contributed a component, will be accessible to all in a common computer environment .
The physics of each component will be improved to stay in line with the latest advances of the climate science. Interactions between turbulence, convection, clouds, and radiation will receive particular attention in the AOGCM, with the specific goal to reduce the drift observed with most similar models. The GISM will be improved in the areas of basal sliding, iceberg calving, and bedrock isostasy. After a thorough validation over Greenland, the RegAM will be used to develop a meltwater-budget parameterisation to be imbedded in the coupling interface between the GISM and the AOGCM. A 50-km resolution version of the RegAM will be validated over Western Europe for the present climate. In a finer-resolution version of the RegAM limited to Belgium, one will test physical parameterisations adapted to the simulation of extreme weather events (e.g., storms, fog). To validate these models and put the future regional changes they simulate in perspective, data from two sources will be used : analyses from a numerical weather prediction model and a new regional database for Belgium produced for this purpose .
The AOGCM and GISM will be coupled using the parameterisation derived with the RegAM. The coupled model will be then forced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) SRES scenario B2, and the impact of iceberg discharge and meltwater flow from the Greenland ice sheet on the sea level and on the oceanic thermohaline circulation will be analysed, with a particular attention paid to Western Europe and North Atlantic.
To refine the climate-change projections over Western Europe, the 50-km-resolution RegAM will be nested in the coupled model, and time-slice climate-change experiments will be performed.
Finally, the transition towards an even more advanced AOGCM will be prepared.
Deliverables and expected results
The project will provide the Belgian decision makers with projections of climate change over Belgium with increased confidence at a higher resolution than has been done in the past. The climate-change experiments to be conducted will also provide valuable input for the climate impact research community.
The deliverables will be the results of the model verifications, the output of the climate-change simulations, and the processed observational data. All these data will constitute a data bank that will be made accessible to the whole scientific community. They will be published in the open scientific literature and in the annual and final reports to be prepared for the Federal Office for Scientific, Technical, and Cultural Affairs.
Scientific collaboration
Members of the CLIMOD network are deeply involved in the IPCC activities and in international research programmes related to climate change, such as the European Environment and Climate Programme and the World Climate Research Programme on Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR).
A number of scientific collaborations have been established between the teams involved in CLIMOD and European laboratories. In particular, ASTR-GCMG/RCMG works in close collaboration with the Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique of the CNRS (Paris). Collaborations also exist with research teams involved in other networks supported by the Global Change and Sustainable Development Programme. For instance, ASTR-GCMG/RCMG collaborates with the Institut d’Astrophysique de Liège, which deals with carbon-cycle modelling, and with the Centre for Operation Research (CORE) of the Université catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve), which deals with the economic aspects of climate change.
