Project description
Defining Earth’s natural climate baseline
How would the climate evolve without human influence? Without a natural baseline, computer models cannot be used to predict the impact of human activities on Earth’s future climate. With this in mind, the ERC-funded NatClim project will generate the first empirically based predictions of natural climate evolution over the next 10 000 to 20 000 years. It will use proxy reconstructions of past climate, age-model improvements, and state-of-the-art global climate models to create a spectrum of projections derived from entirely natural to human-driven scenarios. Comparing these extremes will provide the first quantitative, four-dimensional assessment of humanity’s influence, offering a benchmark for understanding long-term climate change and informing future policy decisions.
Objective
The future of Earth’s climate is of international concern. Yet the models we depend on for predicting the future remain uncalibrated against a natural baseline because that baseline has yet to be defined. In this ambitious project, we will generate the first empirically based predictions of a future climate that will constrain and define the natural baseline. Combined with state-of-the-art climate model experiments, this will allow us to deliver the first quantitative assessment of the absolute impacts of human activity over the coming millennia.
NatClim has 2 primary objectives:
Objective A: develop empirically based predictions about the future natural evolution of climate beginning today and going forward until the projected next glacial transition (10-20kyr from now). Specifically, we will generate new proxy reconstructions of key climate parameters across selected intervals in the past. These will be augmented by improved age model development and used to generate calibrations for predicting future variations in (for example) deep ocean temperature, sea level and atmospheric CO2.
Objective B: produce an ensemble of future climate projections using state-of-the-art global climate models, ranging from entirely natural (based on results from Objective A) to essentially manmade (based on IPCC emission scenarios). The difference between these extremes will provide the first 4-dimensional quantification of the absolute effects of human activity on future climate.
These objectives will be achieved by a team of experts led by the Principal Investigator with support from a group of Early Career Researchers and PhD students, who will gain invaluable and multi-disciplinary experience across climate system research. Our results will provide a groundbreaking benchmark and foundation upon which the full socio-economic costs of manmade climate change can be calculated, and a basis for future global climate policy decision-making.
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.
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences atmospheric sciences climatology climatic changes
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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.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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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
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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-2024-ADG
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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.
CF10 3AT CARDIFF
United Kingdom
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.