Descripción del proyecto
Utilizar la información de los testigos de hielo del pasado para afrontar el cambio climático del presente y del futuro
Para elaborar estrategias eficaces de mitigación y adaptación al cambio climático antropogénico actual y mejorar nuestra capacidad de predecir los cambios climáticos futuros, debemos estudiar cuidadosamente el pasado. La capa de hielo de la Antártida contiene un registro extraordinario de la historia climática de la Tierra. Las burbujas de aire incrustadas en el hielo conservan un registro de la atmósfera terrestre a lo largo del tiempo. El equipo del proyecto Beyond EPICA, financiado con fondos europeos, montó un campamento en el Pequeño Domo C, en la Antártida oriental, con el objetivo de obtener información cuantitativa y de alta resolución de los testigos de hielo sobre los cambios climáticos y ambientales de los últimos 1,5 millones de años. Esto incluye una importante transición en el ritmo y la intensidad de los ciclos de la Edad de Hielo. La investigación es vital para comprender los procesos que rigen nuestro sistema climático.
Objetivo
To better constrain the long-term response of Earth's climate system to continuing greenhouse gas emissions, it is essential to turn to the past. A key advance would be to understand the shift in Earth's climate response to orbital forcing during the 'Mid-Pleistocene transition' [MPT, 900,000 (900 kyr) to 1.2 million years (1.2 Myr) ago], when a dominant 40 kyr cyclicity gave way to the current 100 kyr period. It is critical to understand the role of forcing factors and especially of greenhouse gases in this transition. Unravelling such key linkages between the carbon cycle, ice sheets, atmosphere and ocean behaviour is vital, assisting society to design an effective mitigation and adaptation strategy for climate change. Only ice cores contain direct and quantitative information about past climate forcing and atmospheric responses. However, the longest (EPICA) ice core record available to date covers only the last 800 kyr. The RIA Topic LC-CLA-08-2018 empowers the European ice core community to perform such an oldest ice core drilling and the project 'Beyond EPICA' is taking on this unique challenge and opportunity. The overarching scientific objective driving 'Beyond EPICA' is to obtain quantitative, high-resolution ice- core information on climate and environmental changes over the last 1.5 Myr. The cause and effect relationship that led to the enigmatic MPT change in the climate system is not understood yet, as important information on global changes in the climate system is still missing. Most of this information, including the phasing of these changes in the Earth System can only be derived from a continuous ice core from Antarctica covering the last 1.5 Myr. This proposal uses the planning derived during the recent BE-OI CSA, and offers an excellent team (the only team globally that could at present accept the challenge of the call), underpinned by excellent infrastructure and capacity, and is currently ensuring it has an excellent location for the core.
Ámbito científico
Palabras clave
Programa(s)
Convocatoria de propuestas
Consulte otros proyectos de esta convocatoriaConvocatoria de subcontratación
H2020-LC-CLA-2018-2
Régimen de financiación
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinador
00185 Roma
Italia