Session 3: “Predict and Predictability – The Arctic YOPP” The Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP)

Monday 22 March 2021 12:00 – 13:30 GMT 

This session offered an overview of some of the key activities associated with the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP) efforts and YOPP-endorsed projects in the Arctic and the North Atlantic. Through a series of rapid 5-min talks, the presenters introduced a variety of YOPP activities, showcase a variety of available meteorological datasets and how to access them. The session concluded by highlighting ways in which ECRs can contribute to YOPP and PPP.

• Thomas Rackow - MOSAiC School: ‘’Lectures on shaky ground - not scientifically of course! (MOSAiC School)”

  During this talk, I briefly introduced the "MOSAiC School" onboard the Russian vessel Akademik Fedorov in the Arctic Ocean and talked about how 20 international Early Career Scientists engaged in making the school and the setup up of the "Distributed Network" around Polarstern a success.

• Irina Sandu: “Prospects for Improving Weather Forecasts and Climate Reanalysis in the Arctic and Beyond”

  Irina showed that synergistic investments in observing systems and all components of numerical weather prediction systems (coupled modeling, data assimilation and ensemble prediction techniques and use of observations) are a must in order to improve predictions in the Arctic and beyond.

• Gunilla Svensson - YOPPsiteMIP - “YOPPsiteMIP: Year of Polar Prediction site Model Inter-comparison Project”

  YOPPsiteMIP is a coordinated process-based model evaluation project. It is based on observatories in polar regions that have a wide range of sensors (sometimes called supersites) and the interest of numerical weather prediction models to figure out how to remedy model issues. The project has defined protocols for the data regarding format, names, etc that are used both by the modelers and observationalists. This means that the modelers are using the best-suited observations in an easy-to access format available at all YOPPsiteMIP observatories.

• Øystein Godoy - YOPP data portal

• Jørn Kristiansen and Marvin Kahnert: “Enhancing capabilities of NWP in the Arctic - Insight into the ALERTNESS project”

  We briefly presented the utility of the employed tools and diagnostics that we developed and use towards improving weather prediction in the Arctic. These tools include individual tendency output, the single-column model version of our model HARMONIE-AROME (MUSC), and a tool called DDH, which enables model output every single time step for a specific region of interest. We also mentioned the opportunities for early-career scientists within the ALERTNESS project.

• Chris Barrell, University of East Anglia: “Studying atmosphere-ocean interaction during the Iceland-Greenland Seas Project 2018“

  Over the Nordic Seas atmospheric forcing causes densification of the surface waters, which sink to form the headwaters of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. To tackle the lack of observations during wintertime and improve scientific understanding in this important region, the Iceland-Greenland Seas Project (IGP) undertook an extensive field campaign during February and March 2018. This presentation described the IGP aim to characterise the atmospheric forcing and the ocean response, particularly in and around the MIZ, through coordinated ocean-atmosphere measurements, involving a research vessel, a research aircraft, a meteorological buoy, moorings, sea gliders and floats.

• Sebastian Becker, University of Leipzig: “MOSAiC - Airborne observations in the Central Arctic (ACA) - an overview”

  The MOSAiC-ACA campaign was conducted in August/September 2020. In total, 7 research flights were carried out over the open Arctic ocean and the marginal sea ice zone around Svalbard. The Polar 5 aircraft owned by Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), was equipped with a set of instruments measuring radiation and turbulence profiles as well as characterizing different cloud types; in situ and remote sensing measurements were taken. This talk will give an overview of the scientific goals of the campaign, the aircraft instrumentation and the purpose of the flights and flight patterns. Selected measurement data were presented to demonstrate their potential use in future research

• Machiel Lamers - SALINSEAS Project: “Co-production in the European Arctic weather, water, ice and climate services”

  Environmental conditions in the Arctic Ocean are becoming more dynamic due to climate change, while the range of human activities in the European Arctic Ocean is projected to increase. Weather and ice conditions are becoming more extreme and variable, at the same time that specialized environmental forecasting services are increasingly being made available by a growing range of public and commercial providers, to facilitate human safety, community well-being, as well as sustainable operations. The tailoring of these services is increasingly based on the premise of co-production, to suit diverse user needs across the Polar Regions. Research is funded under the condition that co-production with a range of stakeholders and end-users will need to take place. However, there is a limited understanding, both practically and conceptually, of what such co-production initiatives entail in the European Arctic Ocean context, and how co-production processes can be carried out in ways that benefit both user and research communities. In this presentation the opportunities and challenges of co-production were discussed, built on shared insights on transdisciplinary network building, engagement of and engaging with users, and project management.

• Erin Thomas - Nansen LEGACY project: “The Nansen Legacy Project: Lessons From An Arctic Forecasting Perspective”

  I talked about lessons learned from the Nansen Legacy project with a focus on my contribution to the project of developing a coupled Arctic forecasting model. I talked about the possible connections between these Nansen Legacy activities and other Arctic research groups in YOPP.

• Thomas Jung: “Early Career opportunities within the YOPP community”

  There is a strong educational component that runs alongside all the great science taking place under the YOPP umbrella. This talk brought together opportunities for ECRs to engage with the YOPP community, how to make the most of available datasets and resources, and advertise some upcoming education activities.

APECS/YESS/YOPP Workshop at ASSW2021 _Session 3 from APECS Webinars on Vimeo.