The research project Arctic Sea Ice and Greenland Ice Sheet Sensitivity (ice2ice) is the first concerted effort to tackle the first order question of the cause and future implications of past abrupt climate changes in Greenland, a key hypothesis being that Arctic and sub-Arctic sea ice cover excerts important controls on past and future Greenland temperature and ice sheet variations. In Ice2Ice this will be done by:
a) describing the nature, timing and extent of the observed abrupt events across climate archives,
b) resolving the mechanisms behind the sudden demise of sea ice cover,
c) identifying the risk that the ongoing rapid diminution of Arctic sea ice cover could instigate abrupt changes in the future, and
d) determining the implications of such changes for the GIS, as well as regional Arctic and global climate.
The ice2ice project is one of only 13 projects that have received funding from the European Research Council’s prestitgious Synergy Grant Scheme.