Tropical Pacific SST Drivers of Recent Antarctic Sea Ice Trends
Improved spatial resolution in global earth system models and advances in statistical and dynamical downscaling now provide climatic information at appropriate spatial and temporal scales. Together with the continued development of Earth System Models that simulate biogeochemical cycles and interactions with the biosphere at increasing complexity, these make it possible to develop a mechanistic understanding of how ECEs affect biological processes, ecosystem functioning and adaptation capabilities. Limitations in the observational network, both for physical climate system parameters and even more so for long-term ecological monitoring, have hampered progress in understanding bio-physical interactions across a range of scales.
New opportunities for assessing how ECEs modulate ecosystem structure and functioning arise from better scientific understanding of ECEs coupled with technological advances in modeling, observing systems and instrumentation.
Recent advances in the understanding of extreme climate events (ECEs), both in observations and their representation in state-of-the-art earth system models, open new opportunities for assessing their effect on human and natural systems.