Work Package 2

Modelling the impacts of climate change on pollutant transport and fate (Work Package 2)
Work Package 2 will apply suites of different modelling tools developed by leading experts in Europe. The objectives of the work package are:

• To select climate models and energy use scenarios that will serve as the basis for future climate change model projections and also to select the chemical contaminants and their relevant properties, including emission, for use in the models;
• Using a suite of modelling tools, to explore the changing routes and mechanisms by which contaminants are transported to the Arctic and the possible role of climate variability and global climate change on these processes;
• Using food web modelling tools, to explore how contaminants are transferred from the abiotic Arctic environment through food chains into humans and the possible role of climate variability and climate change on these processes; and
• To compare the role of climate change on the transport, fate and food-web transfer of contaminants in the Arctic to selected areas in Europe (for example, the Baltic Sea area) using appropriate modelling tools.

Work Package 2 studies will be conducted by seven partners under the leadership of Dr Ian Cousins, Stockholm University (SU). The other partners are Aarhus University (AU), the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU), O.A.Sys – Ocean Atmosphere Systems GmbH (OASys), the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPG), and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich (ETH Zurich).