Within the Transregional Collaborative Research Centre TR 172 (AC)³, the rapid increase of Arctic near-surface air temperature during the last decades, which is commonly referred to as Arctic Amplification, is analyzed in a joint effort from complementary viewpoints: exploiting observations and models on different temporal and spatial scales will provide us a better understanding of Arctic climate change.

The overarching scientific objective of (AC)³ is to identify, investigate, and evaluate the key processes contributing to Arctic Amplification, improve our understanding of the major feedback mechanisms and quantify their relative importance. Ground- and satellite based long-term observations as well as enhanced observations during ship and airborne campaigns provide a better insight into the Arctic climate system and the relevant processes within. The observations also help us to evaluate and improve models, which are used as testbeds to evaluate different parameterisations, to analyse and quantify feedback mechanisms and the importance of different processes for the Arctic climate system.