Bjerknes Climate Podcast

Are we melting Antarctica irreversibly?

The great ice-sheets in Antarctica and Greenland holds many mysteries. David Chandler, a postdoctoral fellow at the Bjerknes Centre and NORCE, are trying together with his colleagues to unravel these mysteries. In this episode David Chandler takes Stephen Outten and Ingjald Pilskog to the Antarctica where we are discussing how global warming are melting the ice-sheet, in some places irreversibly, leading to sea level rise and life altering climate changes to people all over the globe.

David Chandler is a postdoctoral fellow at NORCE and Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research.

Stephen Outten is a researcher at Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center and Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research.

Ingjald Pilskog is an associated professor at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences and connected to the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research.

Arven etter Nansen – med forskar Marius Årthun

Gratulerer med dagen, Fridtjof Nansen! 10. oktober 2020 ville han ha vært 159 år, og vi holder virket hans i live gjennom samarbeidet i Arven etter Nansen.

Forsker ved Universitetet i Bergen og Bjerknessenteret Marius snakker om inspirasjonen fra Nansens arbeid og vitenskap, grunnlaget han la for klimavarsling, og forskerrollen da og nå.

• Klimavarsling – en arv etter Nansen
• Oppvarming på 4°C i løpet av de siste 50 årene på Svalbard
• Hvordan kan vi bruke Fridtjof Nansens forskning i dag?

Igor Ezau - Heatwaves, the weather that can kill thousands in developed countries

Heatwaves are the extreme weather events that kills the most worldwide together with its close cousin the long-term draught. Peer-reviewed analysis places the European death toll at more than 70,000, in the 2003 European heatwave alone [1]. This was in developed countries with the resources to mitigate the worst consequences. It lasted one month which makes this event as mortal as the ongoing pandemic.

The WHO defines heatwaves as more than three days with temperatures above 25 degrees C. This is when conditions start to get dangerous to humans. Other definitions are linked to higher temperatures than the normal temperatures – but what happens when the normal temperatures rise? Will there be less heatwaves?

Igor Ezau dicuss with Stephen outten and Ingjald Pilskog in this new episode “Heatwaves, the weather that can kill thousands in developed countries”.

[1] Robine, Jean-Marie; Cheung, Siu Lan K.; Le Roy, Sophie; Van Oyen, Herman; Griffiths, Clare; Michel, Jean-Pierre; Herrmann, François Richard (2008). "Solongo". Comptes Rendus Biologies. 331 (2): 171–178. doi:10.1016/j.crvi.2007.12.001. ISSN 1631-0691. PMID 18241810

North America's greatest export: Warm weather to Europe

Is warm weather to Europe, North America's greatest export?

Listen to the science conversation between Tim Woollings, Associate Professor at the University of Oxford, and Stephen Outten and Ingjald Pilskog podcast hosts and researchers at the Bjerknes Centre.

Dr. Tim Woollings, has been visiting researcher at the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research the last months. He is an expert in jet streams and large scale atmospheric dynamics. 

The scientists discuss how the jet stream causes heat waves and cold periods, how the jet stream is affected by a changing climate and how the tropics and the Arctic pushes the jet northwards and southwards. 

Fasten your seatbelts and join a trip with the jet stream around the globe, southwards along the Rocky Mountains and free and variable northeast bound across the North Atlantic. 

Warning: This episode contains meteorological terms - be ware of terms like Rossby waves, eddy-driven jet, blocking and polar front!

SciSnack stories – articles from our young and early career scientists

Today, we’re giving you a three-course meal, through the writings of Scisnack. SciSnack is a group led by scientists at the University of Bergen, with the objective of improving writing skills of young and early career scientists around the world. You can read all these and more at SciSnack.com.

• How can evaporation of rain calm down the weather? – Kristine Flacké Haualand, 2019
• Terrain and climate models – Marie Pontoppidan, 2017
• Surfing atmospheric waves – the Morning Glory phenomenon – Kristine Flacké Haualand, 2016

Citizen scientists help bringing water to the weather models

Due to the sars-cov-19 pandemic, this year's citizen science project have been postponed. Even though it seems that it is dificult for Norwegian skiers to stay at home, we cannot give them the excuse to seek out the snow. If you want to get involved when we are up and running again, you can contact the Harald Sodemann.

Harald Sodemann is working on improving the weather models. One thing he and his colleagues think can be improved is how water in the atmosphere is treated, to understand where it is coming from. To do this they need observations, and to get these observations, they ask skiers in the Norwegian mountains to take snow samples. For where better to gather samples of precipitation than the rainy Norwegian mountains. And who better to gather these samples, than skiers that prefer to go where no other people would think about going.

Før og etter hockeykøllegrafen – med Øyvind Paasche

«Det var eit liv før hockeykurven også», seier Øyvind Paasche, seniorforsker og seniorrådgiver ved NORCE og Bjerknessenteret.

Hockeykurven, Hockey stick graph, Hockeykøllegrafen, – kjært barn har mange namn. Namneopphavet er openbart om du ser på den, ei temperaturlinje gjennom dei siste 600 åra som først går svakt nedover før den får ein knekk oppover på 1900-talet – som gjer at den ser ut som skaftet og bladet på ei hockeykølle.

Den dukka opp i 1998 i tidsskriftet Nature, og fekk stor betydning for klimaforskinga som felt. Men korleis var det før den kom, kva hendte då den dukka opp, og kva betydning har den fått seinare?

Øyvind Paasche tek oss med på gjennom hockeykøllegrafens historie – ei reise han sjølv har teke del i. Episoden er produsert av Andreas Hadsel Opsvik. Musikken er Lee Rosevere - Arcade montage, gjennom Creative Commons by-3.0.

Dei to artiklane nemnd i episoden:

• Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries, Michael E. Mann et al.: https://www.nature.com/articles/33859
• Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity, Johan Rockström et al.: https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art32/

Storm tracks – A conveyor belt of warm moist air

Professor Camille Li works on storm tracks, the warm, moist conveyor belt that deliver storm after storm to us here in Western Norway and the British isles. Learn how these storm tracks works, how they will change and the research Camille Li and her colleagues are conducting at the Bjerknes centre for climate research.

Our host, the NERSC researcher Stephen Outten and editor and associate professor Ingjald Pilskog, talk with Camille Li about why we are getting wet here in northwestern Europe.

neXtSIM - The next generation of ice forecast

Einar Örn Ólason is working on sea ice forecasting and improving how sea ice is modelled in the future generations of earth system models. Learn how we will improve our predictions of what is going on in the high north and how this gives us a better understanding of our future. Learn about neXtSIM the future of sea ice prediction.

Our host, the NERSC researcher Stephen Outten and editor and associate professor Ingjald Pilskog, talk with Einar Ólason about a model that means more for you then you know.

Improving weather prediction in the Arctic

Weather models are made primarily for making good weather forecasts in the mid-latitudes, i.e. Europe and north America. They are also made to be able to calculate forecasts fast enough to be helpful on computers that are not as fast as the current computers. Therefore we have used a lot of short cuts that are not physical. PhDs as Marvin Kähnert are working on improving the models in the Arctic and introduce more physical correct assumptions.

Our host the NERSC researcher Stephen Outten and editor and associate professor Ingjald Pilskog talk with Kähnert about the problem and what is done to fix it.

Music by Lee Rosevere - Arcade montage, B.Y. 3.0.