YOPP Video Material

YOPP Videos

The Year of Polar Prediction - Charting the Journey through Uncharted Territory

The Arctic and Antarctic are our planet’s final frontiers. Vast. Inhospitable. But not as isolated as we might think. What happens at the poles doesn’t stay at the poles - it affects the entire globe. And the reality is, the poles are changing, fast.

A joint video production by the International Coordination Office of Polar Prediction, the World Meteorological Organization, and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research.

View the video on the YOPP Youtube channel.

The Year of Polar Prediction – From Research to Improved Environmental Safety in Polar Regions and Beyond

Experts within the Polar Prediction Project explain what the Year of Polar Prediction means to them, personally and scientifically, and why it is important for everyone.

Video compiled by Winfried Hoke/Alfred Wegener Institute.

View the video on the YOPP Youtube channel.

Supplementary material to the video including written statements of interviewed colleagues can be found here.

In the Mind of the Modeller – Interview with Peter Bauer

In February 2019, Peter Bauer (middle) received the Helmholtz Fellow Award certificate by Antje Boetius, Director of the German Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), and Thomas Jung, head of the AWI Climate Dynamics Section (photo: Luisa Cristini).

 

A conversation with ECMWF Deputy Director of Research Peter Bauer on supercomputing, his work to advance weather prediction and the future prospects of technology and science

Peter Bauer is Deputy Director of Research and Manager of the Scalability Programme at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). He has been one of the pioneers shaping the Polar Prediction Project and the Year of Polar Prediction as a Steering Group member from Day 1. In 2018, he has received the Helmholtz International Fellow Award. On 5 February 2019, Antje Boetius, Director of the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), handed over the Helmholtz Fellow certificate to Peter Bauer for his frontier work in the field of high-resolution modelling, prediction and computing. During a one-week visit, he had the chance to meet with researchers and early career scientists at the German Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven. In this lecture entitled "Why future weather and climate prediction needs to pay serious attention to computing?", Peter Bauer shared insights on the current challenges of predictive capabilities limited by computing skills, in view of developing more realistic Earth-system models

Watch the video interview on the YOPP Youtube channel.

Read the interview here.

Further YOPP Videos

Please contact office@polarprediction.net for videos as mp4 file.

Online Seminars

Additional Video Material

Credit: Nils Hutter/Alfred Wegener Institute

Video material provided by the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (contact: Lars Grübner, lars.grübner@awi.de)

More videos can be found at the AWI YouTube Channel


Modelling output (using FESOM and MITgcm models) video material provided by the Climate Dynamics section of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (for contact please see below)

Shown are details of the ocean circulation in the largest current on earth – the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. This current circulates around Antarctica and therefore connects the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current transports about 150 times more water per second than all Earth's rivers combined. (contact: Nikolay Koldunov nikolay.koldunov[at]awi.de Claudia Wekerle claudia.wekerle[at]awi.de)

The Fram Strait between Greenland and Spitsbergen is the only deep-water passage connecting the Arctic with the world oceans. Here, two strong ocean currents meet: At the eastern part the remnants of the relatively warm Atlantic waters from the Gulf Stream enter the Arctic Ocean. Along the western part of the strait, cold water from the Arctic Ocean flow southward to the Atlantic Ocean. The animations show how complicated the dynamics of these two currents are, including numerous variability and eddy activity. (contact: Nikolay Koldunov nikolay.koldunov[at]awi.de Claudia Wekerle claudia.wekerle[at]awi.de)

Northern Hemisphere sea ice from a FESOM 4.5 km resolution simulation carried out by researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), Germany. Concentration is shown with color; thickness is shown with shading. A global 1 degree mesh is used, with the "Arctic Ocean" locally refined to 4.5 km. South of Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA) and Fram Strait the resolution is not refined in this simulation. The animation indicates that the 4.5 km model resolution helps to represent the small scale sea ice features, although much higher resolution is required to fully resolve the ice leads. (contact: Qiang Wang qiang.wang[at]awi.de)

Arctic sea ice in a global MITgcm simulation by scientists of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL/NASA). At the very high resolution of 1 km, the small-scale deformation of ice is resolved by the model and the sea-ice cover is divided into several ice floes separated by strips of open ocean, so-called leads. Since many interaction processes between ocean, atmosphere and ice take place along leads in sea ice, resolving these thin lines of open ocean is thought to improve the representation of the Arctic climate in climate models. Predicting the position of leads will also be of large interest for shipping and other economic activity in times of retreating sea ice. (contact: Nils Hutter nils.hutter[at]awi.de)