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ITS2.10/CL0.8 | Winds of change: past perspectives on future shifts in high-latitude storminess
EDI
Winds of change: past perspectives on future shifts in high-latitude storminess
Convener: Matt Strzelecki | Co-conveners: Willem van der Bilt, Zofia StachowskaECSECS, Maaike ZwierECSECS, Krzysztof PleskotECSECS
Climate change progresses fastest in Earth’s high latitude regions. As sea ice disappears and temperatures rise, increases in fetch length and heat fluxes strengthen wind and wave strength. At the same time, a combination of permafrost thaw and sea-level rise make the region’s coastal areas particularly vulnerable to these changes in storminess. And some impacts – notably the release of carbon from wave-driven coastal erosion and wind-driven changes in ocean ventilation – are global. But despite these consequences and their societal ramifications, future changes in storminess remain poorly constrained. This session will highlight how coastal archives like lake sediments or beach ridges can fill this critical knowledge gap, by providing long-term baseline data from the past. Emphasis will be placed on reconstructions, but we invite contributions that harness the potential of instrumental and modelling data to validate proxy work. We are particularly keen to showcase the potential of emerging biological (i.e. long-distance transported pollen, diatom transfer functions), geochemical (i.e. wind-driven evaporative isotope enrichment) or sedimentological (i.e. characterization of wind- or wave-blown particles invisible to the naked eye) methods. We furthermore encourage contributions from under-studied areas with global significance like the Southern Ocean or High Arctic, and studies that focus on extreme events like tsunamis. Also welcome are societal impact studies that assess the (economic) consequences of shifts in storminess on – for example – shipping and power generation.