MOCA: Meltwater routing and Ocean-Cryosphere-Atmosphere response a joint network project of the INQUA PALCOM (Paleoclimate) and TERPRO (Terrestrial Processes) Commissions

Principle Objective: to establish a constrained regional meltwater and iceberg discharge chronology for the northern hemisphere during the last deglaciation with well-defined error bars.

The Consequent Objective is to establish a good conceptual understanding of the interactions between the cryosphere, ocean, and atmosphere associated with this chronology.

Brief description

MOCA is a joint project of the INQUA PALCOMM and TERPRO Commissions. To help keep this ambitious project manageable, MOCA incorporates two sub-projects: Constraining North American DEGLACiation (NDEGLAC), and Constraining Eurasian DEGLACiation (EDEGLAC).

The network is developing a collaboration with the Paleo Model Intercomparison Project (PMIP II) and associated modelling groups. MOCA will provide data-calibrated glaciologically self-consistent ice and meltwater deglacial chronologies and iteratively refine these chronologies based on climate model results, observational constraints, glacial systems modelling, and expert insight. An underlying intent of MOCA is to further forge the interdisciplinary links between the glaciological, Quaternary terrestrial, paleoceanographic, and climate modeling communities that are required to adequately decipher and understand past Earth and climate system dynamics especially in the context of mid-high latitude regions and abrupt climate change.

Upcoming meetings

Open MOCA meeting/workshop at the INQUA congress in Bern on Wednesday, 27 July, 08.45 – 12.30, Novotel Room Muri. After a quick review of what's been done, we'll discuss next steps for MOCA and spend most of our time sketching out a collective paper.

MOCA session at the 2011 INQUA congress in Bern: Understanding last glacial cycle ice sheets and meltwater impact through data and modelling. What did the ice sheets do, why, and how did they affect the rest of the climate system, especially via freshwater fluxes?

Past meetings

Joint MOCA/APEX (Arctic Palaeoclimate and its Extreme) international conference and workshop in Iceland, May 26-31/2010. MOCA had an additional 1 day workshop on May 31 in Reykjavik.

Joint MOCA/PMIP splinter meeting on finalizing transient experiments for PMIP II and European calibration results and constraint data sets at the EGU 2009 Congress.

MOCA North American deglacial chronology workshop at the 2009 CANQU meeting, Vancouver, Canada.

Key Documents

updated version of accepted MOCA project proposal.

Related links

INQUA PALCOMM commission

INQUA TERPRO commission

Addresses of Steering Committee Members:

For more information on the project, to suggest related links, join the mailing list,... click here.