Project description
Southern Ocean vertical exchange
Historically, the global ocean has played a critical role in mitigating global climate change by taking up most of the excess heat and about 30 % of the anthropogenic CO2 emissions from the atmosphere. The greatest part of this process occurred through the renewal of subsurface waters in the Southern Ocean. However, global climate models still fail to represent the region’s past climatic changes, leading to significant uncertainties in future projections. The EU-funded VERTEXSO project will study vertical transport processes in observations and model simulations, with a particular focus on convective plumes. VERTEXSO will improve the representation of vertical transport processes in models, assess their impact on vertical heat and carbon exchange, and develop innovative methods to monitor them.
Objective
Mitigating global climatic changes due to human influences is of paramount importance in the coming decades. Historically, the global ocean has played a critical role in this process by taking up the majority of the excess heat and about 30% of the anthropogenic carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions from the atmosphere. The largest share of this uptake process occurred through the subduction of waters in the Southern Ocean that sequester heat and carbon in deeper layers of the ocean. Yet, global climate models have their largest biases in this region and difficulties in representing its past climatic changes. Thus, their future projections bear large uncertainties in the potential of the Southern Ocean to continuously provide such a mitigation service. VERTEXSO addresses this challenge by studying vertical transport processes, improving their representation in models, and developing novel methods to continuously monitor the vertical exchange. In order to reach these goals, this project performs simulations with a regional ocean model that is able to directly resolve convective plumes and assesses their impact on vertical carbon exchange. We then scale the insights to a global level by improving parameterisations of vertical processes in an Earth System Model, and by investigating their impacts on global climatic changes. Facilitated by most recent advances in remotely observing the Southern Ocean high latitudes, we explore tracers of convective plumes in subsurface data and integrate these observations with satellite data to assess surface density stratification changes. The latter forms a new measure for vertical exchange that serves as a benchmark for model simulations and a tool to monitor the potential of the Southern Ocean to take up and release CO2 and heat. Through this combination of observational data with multi-scale model simulations, VERTEXSO advances the understanding of vertical exchange in the Southern Ocean and how its changes affect the global climate.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- engineering and technology mechanical engineering vehicle engineering aerospace engineering satellite technology
You need to log in or register to use this function
We are sorry... an unexpected error occurred during execution.
You need to be authenticated. Your session might have expired.
Thank you for your feedback. You will soon receive an email to confirm the submission. If you have selected to be notified about the reporting status, you will also be contacted when the reporting status will change.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
-
HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
See all projects funded under this programme
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
See all projects funded under this funding scheme
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2021-STG
See all projects funded under this callHost institution
Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
27570 Bremerhaven
Germany
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.