ULiège is represented in PolarRES by the Laboratory of Climatology from the Department of Geography included in the ‘SPHERES’ research unit.
The research carried out at the Laboratory of Climatology from ULiège is mainly based on the MAR regional climate model that we are developing and that we (i.e. ~ 10 people) are using in particular for studying the Polar Regions, i.e. the current and future evolution of the climate and surface mass balance (SMB) of the main ice sheets/caps (Greenland, Antarctica, Svalbard, Arctic Canada). In these regions, MAR is internationally recognized as one of the best regional models currently available for performing SMB estimation and our projections of sea level rises from melting ice caps are the reference in this field (total 80 papers about this topic over the last 5 years). MAR (forced by GFS) is also used to assess the real-time state of both Antarctica and Greenland ice sheet surface mass balance by running it in forecast mode. Finally, in PARAMOUR and the PROTECT H2020 projects, MAR is coupled with the regional ocean model NEMO to study the interaction at high spatio-temporal resolution between atmosphere and ocean in the polar regions.