CONVECTION

The objective of CONVECTION is to understand the physics underlying the convection process in the Greenland Sea and how this process links with climatic factors.

At the end of the project we expect this understanding to be such that a successful technique will be implemented to predict year-to-year variability, and long term trends, in the convection process.

The investigation will be carried out by a combination of remote sensing, modelling and field measurements.

The CONVECTION project is coordinated by Prof. Peter Wadhams from the Scott Polar Research Institute; 10 laboratories are involved. The Département d'Océanographie Spatiale of IFREMER contributes mainly to the remote-sensing component, using the PSI products generated at CERSAT from scatterometer measurements (ERS, NSCAT and QuikSCAT/SeaWinds). It also provides its expertise concerning other satellite sensors (microwave radiometers, synthetic aperture radars). All satellite data will be used as forcing data for a salt flux model within in a regional ocean circulation model.