CALVA - ACDC
Antartic field data
for CALibration and VAlidation of meteorological and climate
models and satellite retrievals, Antarctic Coast to Dome C
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CALVA - ACDC
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| Background |
APRES3 |
CENACLAM | Reports | Data | Participants | Publications |
The ongoing global climate change has a complex signature in Antarctica. The set-back of the stratospheric ozone hole (Montreal protocol), natural variability cycles (Antarctic oscillation), a complex contribution by the southern ocean, presently result in a delayed response on a large part of the continent (east Antarctica) but a strong signature elsewhere (Peninsula, Weddell and Belingshausen sectors). It is very likely that climate changes in the course of the present century will be significant over Antarctica (Krinner et al. 2007, Genthon et al. 2009) but the magnitude and detailed chronology of this change remains to be firmly established. Climate change over Antarctica will affect mass balance and thus sea-level with global consequences. Therefore, it is important to make sure that meteorological and climate models used to predict climate and mass balance change over Antarctica are calibrated and validated with proper field data. Such observation is necessarily of limited spatial and to some extent temporal significance. It is thus important to also improve our ability to exploit satellite information to inter- and extrapolate the field data to scales compatible with models and more generally to the full scale of Antarctica. A main point about the present project is is that it jointly coordinates field activities in support of both climate models and satellite remote sensing. The objectives of the project are to deploy, maintain and exploit a set of automatic autonomous instrumental systems, to carry manual observations on the field , and to participate in special observing campaigns to improve calibration of and validate analysis and forecast climate models and satellite data processing algorithms. Selection of necessary data and of methods to acquire the data are thus determined by the common and specific needs of models and remote sensing. Below is a document (in french) that describes atmospheric monitoring systems deployed and maintained by Laboratoire de Glaciologie et >Géophysique de l'Environnement in Adélie Land as of 2011, from the coast of the ice sheet to ~100 km in land. The systems at D3, D17 and D47 are part of the CALVA program. They currently support research on the processes of surface mass balance of Antarctica as part of the ICE2SEA FP7 european project (http://www.ice2sea.eu/).  The CALVA~= was approved by Institut Polaire Francais Paul-Emile-Victor (IPEV) in 2009, to begin with the 2009-2010 Antarctic field season. This is IPEV program 1013. |