Because they want to incorporate the best ideas and physical descriptions of firn from existing models, they are organizing a firn-densification model inter-comparison project and hope researchers will join the project.
What: Numerous glaciological research questions involve physical processes in firn; however, for this project they are focusing on cold firn, which is targeted at understanding firn air (See link above).
They will compare new and existing firn-densification models with a standard suite of boundary conditions, including temperature and accumulation rate. Model developers are asked to run their model and provide output to be included in the suite of results. Model-comparison tests will incorporate synthetic and observation-based boundary conditions. They hope that a community model-comparison paper will result from all the contributions.
Why: They wish to compare the response behavior of current firn models to pertinent questions. For example, what is the variance among current models in response to temperature perturbations? In response to accumulation-rate perturbations? How well can different models replicate observations? The goal is to determine the most-pertinent physics for a transient firn model under a wide rage of climate conditions. This will guide future improvements in firn modeling.
When: They hope to initiate the first simple inter-comparisons by January 18 and will provide a set of boundary conditions for this initial stage of the project. Further goals, tests, and target dates (e.g. at EGU, April 7-12) will be established as the group develops.
Who: All are welcome to contribute results and modeling expertise.
For more information please contact:
jdrees@uw.edu
www.ess.earthweb.washington.edu/~jdrees
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