PhD project “Attributing Summer Arctic Polynyas (ASAP)”, funded by the Swedish Space Research School.
Ca 4.9 million SEK. I am the PI. Co-I is Luisa Ickes, Chalmers.
April 2026 – December 2030

The aim of the project is to determine the drivers of the emergence and variability of summer polynyas in the “last ice area” of the Arctic, as well as to improve their retrievability by better understanding their impact on the climate system. The sub objectives are:

• To determine why summer polynyas open where and when they do in the Arctic, and why they change shape while they are open, in particular the respective roles of dynamics and thermodynamics in a changing climate;
• To model the air-sea fluxes and more generally the impact of the polynyas on the weather, in order to (eventually) improve the polynya retrievability;
• To analyse unique multidisciplinary data (ocean physics, BGC, ecosystem) collected in summer 2020 in one of these polynyas.

Team:

• PhD student – to be recruited soon;
• Myself as main supervisor;
• Luisa Ickes from Chalmers as co-supervisor;
• Collaborations with Kay Ohshima, Hokkaido University, Japan; Lu Zhou, Uni Utrecht.

Publications:

• Nothing yet, the project just started 🙂

Conference, seminar, or outreach presentations related to this project:

• Same