Clara Burgard

Institut des Géosciences de l'Environnement

Ocean-induced ice-shelf melt is one of the largest uncertainty factors in the Antarctic contribution to future sea-level rise. Several parameterisations exist, linking oceanic properties in front of the ice shelf to melt at the base of the ice shelf, to force ice-sheet models. Here, we assess the potential of a range of these existing basal melt pa...

Antarctic Ice Sheet projections show the highest sensitivity to increased basal melting in the Amundsen Sea. However, little is known about the processes that control future increase in melt rates. We build an ensemble of three ocean–sea‐ice–ice‐shelf simulations for both the recent decades and the late 21st century, constrained by regional atmosph...

Seasonal transitions in Arctic sea ice, such as the melt onset, have been found to be useful metrics for evaluating sea ice in climate models against observations. However, comparisons of melt onset dates between climate models and satellite observations are indirect. Satellite data products of melt onset rely on observed brightness temperatures, w...

Ocean-induced ice-shelf melt is the highest uncertainty factor in the Antarctic contribution to future sea level. Several parameterisations exist to link oceanic properties to basal melt and force ice-sheet models. Here, we assess the potential of a range of existing basal melt parameterisations to emulate basal melt rates simulated by a cavity-res...

Climate change is all over the news. But what exactly do we mean by “climate” and “climate change?” The word “climate” describes the average state of the atmosphere. It is a result of the composition and interactions between the natural elements: the air, oceans, plants and animals, ice and snow, and rocks. There are several different climate zones...

Our planet’s climate has been warming much faster over the past 100 years than it has over the 10,000 years before that. In this article, we will explore how we know that the climate has changed so quickly in the last century, what carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) has to do with climate change, and why humans are responsible for the recent increase of CO 2 i...

Coastal areas are highly diverse, ecologically rich, regions of key socio-economic activity, and are particularly sensitive to sea-level change. Over most of the 20th century, global mean sea level has risen mainly due to warming and subsequent expansion of the upper ocean layers as well as the melting of glaciers and ice caps. Over the last three...

Seasonal transitions in Arctic sea ice, such as the melt onset, have been found to be useful metrics for evaluating sea ice in climate models against observations. However, comparisons of melt onset dates between climate models and satellite observations are indirect. Satellite data products of melt onset rely on observed brightness temperatures, w...

The observational uncertainty in sea ice concentration estimates from remotely sensed passive microwave brightness temperatures is a challenge for reliable climate model evaluation and initialization. To address this challenge, we introduce a new tool: the Arctic Ocean Observation Operator (ARC3O). ARC3O allows us to simulate brightness temperature...

We explore the feasibility of an observation operator producing passive microwave brightness temperatures for sea ice at a frequency of 6.9 GHz. We investigate the influence of simplifying assumptions for the representation of sea ice vertical properties on the simulation of microwave brightness temperatures. We do so in a one-dimensional setup, us...

Abstract. The observational uncertainty in sea-ice-concentration estimates from remotely-sensed passive-microwave brightness temperatures is a challenge for reliable climate model evaluation and initialization. To address this challenge, we introduce a new tool: the Arctic Ocean Observation Operator (ARC3O). ARC3O allows us to simulate brightness t...

Abstract. We explore the feasibility of an observation operator producing passive microwave brightness temperatures for sea ice at a frequency of 6.9 GHz. We investigate the influence of simplifying assumptions for the representation of sea-ice vertical properties on the simulation of microwave brightness temperatures. We do so in a one-dimensional...

We investigate changes in the Arctic Ocean energy budget simulated by 26 general circulation models in the CMIP5 framework. Our goal is to understand whether the Arctic Ocean warming between 1961 and 2099 is primarily driven by changes in the net atmospheric surface flux or by changes in the meridional oceanic heat flux. We find that the simulated...

Global statistics of snowfall are currently only available from the CloudSat satellite. But CloudSat cannot provide observations of clouds and precipitation within the so-called blind-zone, which is caused by ground-clutter contamination of the CloudSatradar and covers the last [1200]m above land/ice surface. In this study, the impact of the blind-...