Antarctic Climate Change over the 21st Century (AntClim21) focused on the critical issue of estimating how the Antarctic climate system may change over the 21st century. The main scientific goal was to improve climate model projections of Antarctic climate at the end of the 21st century.
pdf AntClim21 Final Report (175 KB)
A comprehensive overview of AntClim21's aims and achievements is provided in this summary presentation
pdf
‘Antarctica on the Edge’
(1.47 MB)
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Summary Video
A short video on the aims and achievements of the AntClim21 SRP, presented during the SCAR 2020 Online conference.
Key Achievements and Legacy
Science
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Linking modern observations with past reconstructions is key to quantifying and understanding natural climate variability and assessing the emergence of anthropogenic influences. AntClim21 workshops and collaborations provided insights into the potential for future climate surprises.
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The #GreatAntarcticClimateHack was a pioneering hybrid meeting held both online and in person. It was aimed at discussing and deciding on metrics to contribute to the evaluation and improvement of climate models that form part of the scientific basis of IPCC reports. A key novelty was the cross-disciplinary approach to model evaluation. This research fed into the current IPCC AR6 report and also involved a strong link with the Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling (SOCCOM) project. -
New methods were developed that provide more reliable regional 21st century projections of Antarctic climate change. These were used to extract information from the climate model datasets that underpin science evidence for the IPCC process. Projections were produced of variables including temperature (terrestrial and sea surface), precipitation, and winds.
Stakeholder Focus
AntClim21 papers provided, or contributed to, the following results that have been included as part of the scientific evidence in the IPCC AR6 WG1 report (see summary report pdf 'Antarctica on the Edge’ (1.47 MB) for more information and full references):
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Showed that the representation of southern mid-latitude westerlies is improved in the current generation of climate models (Bracegirdle et al., 2020a);
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Outlined further improvements and remaining challenges in the representation of sea ice and the Southern Ocean (Beadling et al., 2020; Roach et al., 2020);
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Provided an updated assessment of climate projections (Bracegirdle et al., 2020b) and collaborated on updated sea-level projections through ISMIP6 (Nowicki et al., 2020; Payne et al., 2021).
Capacity Building
AntClim21 workshops and activities included a major element of capacity building. For example the #GreatAntarcticClimateHack included researchers from 17 countries and a high proportion of early-career scientists (29 from 92). Approximately half of all attendees joined remotely, which provided an opportunity for wide engagement.
Supporting Early-Career Researchers (ECRs) was an integral part of AntClim21. Types of support included Steering Committee (SC) membership, travel grants for conference and workshop attendance, networking events, and presentation prizes.
A Vibrant International Community
During the lifetime of AntClim21, a vibrant international community of Antarctic scientists was developed. This was achieved through workshops, conference sessions and networking events. Support for Early-Career Researchers and participants from emerging Antarctic nations helped to increase diversity of the community.
Reports and Documents
AntClim21 reports to SCAR Delegates and Executive Committee meetings can be found through the folder SCAR Meeting Papers folder . Use the Library Search facility to filter using the tag "AntClim21".
Other documents can be found in the folder AntClim21 folder of the SCAR Library .