The North Atlantic Climate System Integrated Study

ACSIS aims to understand the causes of recent multiyear changes in the North Atlantic climate system including the ocean, the atmosphere (including its composition), the cryosphere and the interactions between them. By understanding how these changes relate to external drivers of climate, such as human activity, or natural variability ACSIS will improve our capability to detect, explain and predict changes in the North Atlantic climate system. Our ultimate aim is to improve our ability to predict how these changes will impact the UK. For example, understanding the consequences of hazardous weather and its risk to people, the environment and businesses.

The specific objectives of ACSIS are:

• To provide a quantitative description of how the North Atlantic Climate System is changing across a range of variables;
• To determine the processes that are shaping change in the North Atlantic Climate System now and in the near future;
• To determine the extent to which future changes in the North Atlantic Climate System are predictable.

To tackle these objectives ACSIS will:

• develop new long-term observational datasets and syntheses;
• advance the numerical modelling capabilities and produce simulations with unprecedented precision;
• bring together multidisciplinary teams of researchers who work together across NERC Centres and the Met Office.