Numerical models
Numerical models are mathematical representations of real-world systems that allow researchers to simulate the interaction and evolution of the atmosphere, oceans, snow, ice and ecosystems over time. Reflecting this complexity, SnowPI uses a suite of complementary models to answer different scientific questions.
Understanding the climate system
At the global scale, Earth System Models simulate the full climate system and help researchers understand how changes in snow and ice feed back into the global climate.
Regional Climate Models provide much higher spatial detail over the Arctic and Antarctic. This allows SnowPI researchers to investigate local processes in greater detail, including snowfall, snowpack evolution and the interactions between snow, permafrost and the atmosphere.
Understanding the cryosphere
SnowPI also uses specialised snow, glacier, ice-sheet and permafrost models that focus on individual components of the cryosphere. These help researchers to understand how snow accumulates and melts, how glaciers and ice sheets gain or lose mass, and how permafrost responds to rising temperatures.
Understanding wider impacts
Changes in the cryosphere have consequences that extend far beyond snow and ice. SnowPI therefore uses specialised models to investigate impacts on ecosystems, ocean circulation and global sea-level rise.
A key feature of SnowPI’s modelling work is that improvements developed within the project, particularly to snow process representations, will be fed into the models contributing to the next generation of international climate assessments through CMIP7 and Polar CORDEX.