Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS
Content archived on 2024-06-18

Using deep-sea corals to test the role of the deep Southern Ocean in ocean circulation and the regulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide

Objective

The convective circulation of the world's ocean exerts important controls on two key aspects of the climate system: the transport of heat around the Earth and the degree to which the oceans sequester greenhouse carbon dioxide away from the atmosphere. Models of the past circulation predict variations in its strength that have been implicated in climate change. Marine sediments record changes in ocean chemistry that can be used to test these models. This approach has been pursued with great success in the North Atlantic. The Southern Ocean, on the other hand, is much less studied because of a lack of suitable sediments that record ocean chemistry. And yet, the Southern Ocean and its circulation system may be the key to both heat transport and isolation of a deep ocean carbon reservoir. This proposal seeks to provide key constraints on some of these issues using a unique set of deep-sea coral samples from the Pacific sector (70°S) of the Southern Ocean provided by the British Antarctic Survey and the Alfred Wegener Institute. Specifically we aim to use the radiocarbon ages of the corals, coupled with their calendar ages, to investigate the degree of isolation of the deep Southern Ocean carbon reservoir from the atmosphere, and therefore the extent to which this isolation might explain low atmospheric CO2 during recent glacial periods in Earth history. We also seek to use them to provide basic chemical information on the deep Southern Ocean, information that is key to many studies that use the chemistry of the past North Atlantic Ocean to try to understand ocean circulation.

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.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

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.

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP7-PEOPLE-2007-2-1-IEF
See other projects for this call

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.

MC-IEF - Intra-European Fellowships (IEF)

Coordinator

UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL
EU contribution
€ 168 823,92
Address
BEACON HOUSE QUEENS ROAD
BS8 1QU BRISTOL
United Kingdom

See on map

Region
South West (England) Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Bristol/Bath area Bristol, City of
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

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.

No data
My booklet 0 0