European funding for cloud research
07 October 2009 by KNMI/M&CThe European Union has allocated 3.5 million euros to EUCLIPSE, the new cloud research programme. This aims to reduce the ambiguities present in current climate models by shedding more light on the role played by clouds in climate change. Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands; TU Delft) and the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) are participants in this European programme. The announcement was made by EUCLIPSE coordinator Pier Siebesma in his inaugural address as part-time professor within TU Delft''s Clouds, Climate and Air Quality working group.
Ambiguity
Climate models are tools which enable us to calculate how the climate will change. However, they currently give widely deviating pictures within the predicted global warming. This is chiefly due to low clouds in the different climate models responding in different ways to the predicted warming as a result of an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. Clouds are therefore the foremost ambiguous factor in climate predictions for the 21st century.
KNMI
The KNMI will participate in the EUCLIPSE programme, which kicks off in December, with a new global climate model: EC-Earth. Professor Pier Siebesma is to coordinate the EUCLIPSE programme and is attached to both the KNMI and TU Delft.
TU Delft will participate by calculating the behaviour of clouds in a warming climate using high-resolution models, which represent clouds in a realistic fashion. The research partners, which in addition to TU Delft and the KNMI include ETH Zürich and the Max Planck Institute, will themselves contribute a total of 1.5 million euros; the European Union has allocated 3.5 million euros.
A-train
The research will centre around a new generation of satellites known as the A-train. This train of satellites is equipped with active radar and lidar systems which will enable us to depict clouds three-dimensionally for the first time.
IPCC
The satellite observations and the results of the high-resolution models will be used for critical testing of the climate models. It will consequently be possible to improve the cloud aspects of the models and to rank the models according to which are best able to represent clouds in our atmosphere. The next report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will therefore be able to reduce the ambiguities caused by clouds. This will lead to more accurate prognoses on how our climate will react to the rising levels of greenhouse gases caused by human activity.
More information
Contact: A.P.Siebesma@tudelft.nl or siebesma@knmi.nl, +31 (0)15 27 84720
Press Officer KNMI Harry Geurts, +31 (0)30 22 06 317, geurts@knmi.nl
Science information officer TU Delft Roy Meijer, +31 (0)15 2781751, r.e.t.meijer@tudelft.nl
