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This is the home page of the AICSEX project.  AICSEX is a research procject funded by the European Commission.

AICSEX is coordinated by 

Prof. Ola M. Johannessen, 
Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center, Bergen, Norway 

The partners are 

Prof. Dr. Lennart Bengtsson, Dr. Uwe Mikolajewicz & Dr, Vladimir Semenov 
Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany 

Dr. Seymour Laxon 
Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM), University College London 

Dr. Peter Wadhams 
Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge 

Dr. Nelly Mognard 
CESBIO, Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France 

Dr. Pekka Alenius 
Finnish Institute of Marine Research, Finland 

Dr. Tom Eldegard 
Foundation for Research in Economics and Business Administration, Bergen, Norway 
 
 

Project Ojective

To assess and compare the natural variability (e.g., AO & NAO) and trends, during the 20th century, for selected climate sensitive variables such as ice extent, ice area, first and multiyear ice fraction, thickness and open water, surface air temperature, terrestrial snow cover and river run-off from observations and available global climate models, nested for the high latitude regions, in order to assess the performance and prediction capabilities of these climate models for the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. 

To analyse both model control runs and different greenhouse/aerosol scenario simulations for the 21st century in order to assess the risk for abrupt changes in the ice cover for the Arctic Ocean/Nordic Seas and the Baltic, and the surface temperature, the terrstrial snow cover and the river run-off for the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. 

To assess, by model simulations, the impact a melting ice cover in the Arctic Ocean will have on the (a) carbon uptake, and (b) the pathway and spreading of the melt water and the stratification in the Nordic Seas and North Atlantic Ocean, the deep-water formation and the thermohaline circulation (conveyor belt). 

To assess the economic impact a melting ice cover in the Arctic Ocean and the Baltic Sea will have on marine transportation (e.g., the Northern Sea Route, trans-Arctic and the Baltic Sea), off-shore industry (e.g., Stockman field, eastern Barents, Pechora and Kara Seas) and fisheries (e.g., Barents Sea, Svalbard region).