Decadal Predictability and vAriability of polar climate: the Role of AtMosphere- Ocean-cryosphere Multiscale inteRactions

The climate of the polar regions has dramatically changed over the last decades. This may have resulted from external forcing (e.g., from greenhouse gas emissions), but also from natural interactions between the components of the climate system (notably, the atmosphere, the marine and continental cryosphere, and the ocean). Quantifying the specific contribution of each is critical to understand decadal climate variability, but it is also challenging. First, polar regions are notoriously under-sampled. Second, the dynamics of the high-latitude climate is characterized by strong couplings between the components of the climate system, which prevents any attempt to understand the system by studying its parts separately. Finally, a wide range of physical processes operate on a cascade of spatio-temporal scales (i.e., local effects have large-scale consequences). Based on the complementary scientific expertise of
the project partners, PARAMOUR aims at revealing fundamental drivers of climate variability and assessing the predictability in high-latitudes by using coupled regional climate models in both hemispheres. Retrospective (1980-2015) and prospective (2015-2045) climate simulations at high resolution will be conducted to evaluate the respective roles of initial conditions, teleconnections and couplings in the recent trends and to appreciate the potential fluctuations of key climate indicators within the next decades.