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Rapid Climate Change (RAPID)

Introduction

The Rapid Climate Change (RAPID) Research Programme is a Directed Mode programme of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). The programme aims at improving our ability to quantify the probability and magnitude of future rapid change in climate, with a primary focus on the role of the Atlantic Ocean Thermohaline Circulation. The initial six-year programme started in 2001 and will end in 2007. A second round of projects have subsequently also been funded, as well as several joint projects with Dutch and Norwegian research organisations. There are now a total of 35 projects supported by RAPID. Data from 22 RAPID Projects are to be stored at the BADC:

Round 1:

• The role of the cryosphere on modulating the thermohaline circulation of the North Atlantic
• Quantitative applications of high-resolution late Holocene proxy data sets: estimating climate sensitivity and thermohaline circulation influences
• The Probability of Rapid Climate Change
• The role of salinity in ocean circulation and climate response to greenhouse gas forcing
• ISOMAP UK: a combined data-modelling investigation of water isotopes and their interpretation during rapid climate change events
• The atmospheric water vapour budget and its relevance to the thermohaline circulation
• The Role of Air-Sea Forcing in Causing Rapid Changes in the North Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation
• Improving our ability to predict rapid changes in the El Nino Southern Oscillation climatic phenomenon
• Circulation, overflow, and deep convection studies in the Nordic Seas using tracers and models
• The role of sloping topography in the overturning circulation of the North Atlantic
• Processes controlling dense water formation and transport on Arctic continental shelves

Round 2:

• Can Younger Dryas atmospheric ¹⁴C concentration be attributed to North Atlantic surface ocean ventilation?
• Arctic regulation of the thermohaline circulation (ARTHER)
• Assimilation in ocean and coupled models to determine the thermohaline circulation
• The impact of climate change on the North Atlantic and European storm-track and blocking
• Attribution of ocean climate change signals in the Atlantic
• Predictability of rapid climate change associated with the Atlantic thermohaline circulation
• Understanding uncertainty in simulations of THC-related rapid climate change

Joint International Round

• Punctuated disintegration of the NW European ice sheet and rapid climate change
• Impact of changing freshwater flows on the thermohaline circulation and European climate - analysis and modelling of the last deglaciation
• To what extent was the Little Ice Age a result of a change in the thermohaline circulation?
• Mass balance and freshwater contribution of the Greenland ice sheet: a combined modelling and observational approach

To support the user community, a number of mailing lists are maintained by the BADC. These are the RAPID-general, RAPID-modelling and RAPID-8.2kyr mailing lists. To subscribe, please send an email with a brief outline your project details to RAPID-general-owner@ncas.ac.uk.

Access to data and software

Data, software and metadata submission

Data submitted to the BADC for RAPID should ideally conform to the Climate and Forecast (CF) Metadata Conventions.

The BADC also runs a web-based CF-checker that allows you to upload a file to test for compliance with the CF Convention. Visit the CF-checker page to use this service.

Documentation

• RAPID Climate Change Programme Science Plan
• RAPID Climate Change Programme Data Management Plan.
• RAPID Climate Change Programme Data Policy – RAPID Conditions of Use.
• RAPID Climate Change Brochure (~4.6MB) published by NERC in July 2008.
• List of 21 RAPID projects for which data will be stored at BADC.
• RAPID Models — a review of models and model runs that will be used or produced by RAPID projects (last updated July 2008).
• A set of web pages describing the output from the HadGEM1 control run are also available.

RAPID Thermohaline Circulation Model Intercomparison Project (THCMIP)

• THCMIP home page: http://www.cgam.nerc.ac.uk/rapidthcmip/
• Proposed list of output variables (word format)
• Data for this porject are now being archived at the BADC. This includes model output for control, hosing and transient experiment data from the following Numerical models: FORTE, CHIME, GENIE, FAMOUS, HADCM3 and NEMO. These data can be found at http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/browse/badc/rapid/data/Gregory_Rapid1_Round2 .
• Please apply to the BADC if you require access (note requests for access will need the approval of relevant data provider).

Links

• The RAPID home page at Southampton
• The RAPID Data Centre page at BODC
• The Southampton Assimilated Oceanographic Data at the BADC.
• The BRIDGE (Bristol Research Initiative for the Dynamic Global Environment) web site makes both model and paleo data available, and is mainatined by Paul Valdes at Bristol University.
• The COAPEC Dataset at the BADC.
• The HadGEM1 model integration Dataset at the BADC.
• The HiGEM Dataset at the BADC.
• The LINK Dataset at the BADC.
• UNIDATA CF Metadata Conventions.
• The OCCAM global model at Southampton.
• The Air-Sea Flux Climatology from Simon Josey at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), Southampton.
• The GODIVA web site at Reading.
• The ENACT project.
• The HadISST dataset at the BADC.

Citation

Natural Environment Research Council, [Srokosz, M.; Byfield, V.]. NERC Rapid Climate Change (RAPID) programme, [Internet]. British Atmospheric Data Centre, 2004-, Date of citation. Available from http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/data/rapid

Contacts

• The main contacts for scientific queries concerning RAPID are Dr Meric Srokosz and Dr Val Byfield.
• The NERC RAPID Programme Administrator is Sasha Leigh
  

General queries about these pages or browsing the data should be directed to the BADC support line.

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