Horizon Europe: Inland ice, including snow cover, glaciers, ice sheets and permafrost, and their interaction with climate change

Expected Outcome

Actions are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Advanced knowledge on the impacts of climate change and different natural and socio-economic drivers on inland ice and permafrost, and its global repercussions, including climate-ecosystem interactions, which is relevant to international initiatives, such as the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP)‘s Climate and Cryosphere Project, or the IPBES.
• Further developed and improved climate and Earth System Models (ESMs) that inform the international climate assessments (e.g. CMIP models, CORDEX) and support the development of “digital twins” under the Destination Earth Initiative and the evolution of Copernicus.
• Advanced provision and use of observations, including in-situ, of complex processes with focus on dynamic and vulnerable regions that may lead to high impact changes.
• Supported climate change adaptation strategies including, where relevant, the development of solutions to enhance the resilience of local communities.

Scope

Snow cover, ice sheets and glaciers affect not only the Earth radiation balance and the global climate, but also continental climate systems, the weather of circumpolar regions and their terrestrial and oceanic carbon dynamics, ecosystems, and sea level. Snow and ice cover regulate the properties of the ground underneath and are interlinked with permafrost in areas where average ambient air temperature is below 0°C.

The research actions should contribute to observing, modelling, and projecting the characteristics, volume, and dynamic of inland ice and permafrost in relevant regions, impacting regional and global climate, taking inter-seasonal, annual, decadal, as well as long-term (centuries) changes into account.

The actions should enhance the understanding of the ice sheet or glacier dynamics and evaluate reversibility or irreversibility of changes on multi-decadal to centennial timescales. Furthermore, actions should quantify other impacts caused by the thawing of the inland ice or permafrost at regional or global levels, like the contribution to sea level rise and stratification or impact on biogeochemistry and ocean currents.

Actions should assess the impact of changing land ice, snow cover, or permafrost on local or regional water cycle and economic supplies and services, evaluate the impact of ice processes on human livelihood and cultures, and identify imminent, medium and long-term potential impacts on ecosystem shifts at local and regional scale.

The actions should provide data, tools, and assessments relevant at regional and local scales to support climate change adaptation and explore, identify and verify ecosystems management techniques to allow better adaptation and maintenance of ecosystem services in a changing land-ice landscape.

International cooperation is strongly encouraged.

Actions should build upon and cooperate with relevant Horizon funded projects (e.g., Arctic PASSION, OceanIce, PolarRES, CRiceS, iCUPE), the EU Polar Cluster, the Copernicus Climate Change Service, the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service, the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service and the GEO initiative.

More information: Funding and Tenders