Climate Change – Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory

Much of the work of the laboratory is directed towards improving projections of climate change on the time scale of decades to centuries based on scenarios of carbon emissions, sulfur emissions, land use changes, and other anthropogenic (human-caused) forcing agents. Closely related work focuses on the attribution of observed climate change to various forcing agents, both anthropogenic and natural. Arctic sea ice cover has declined sharply over the past three decades according to satellite observations. This change has many impacts on Arctic ecosystems and human operations in the Arctic Ocean. Climate models also show a decline, but have difficulty accounting for the magnitude of the observed changes. The same anthropogenic forcings that are involved in global warming are implicated, but natural variability may also play a role. Distinguishing these factors is important for predicting the future of the Arctic ice because anthropogenic warming is expected to continue increasing, further

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• Abinaya Dinesh