Final Report Summary - INTRAMIF (INitial TRAining network on Mass Independent Fractionation)
Mass independent oxygen isotope fractionation (MIF) is a new, but powerful research tool in earth system science because it is a sensitive marker of particular chemical reactions where oxygen is exchanged between molecules. Once a MIF signal is produced, standard mass dependent processes cannot erase it. Therefore, it constitutes a powerful chemical marker that can potentially be used in a wide field of applications. While the use has already spread to many scientific disciplines, it may even find industrial applications in the future.
The common goal of all the scientific projects within the INTRAMIF training network was to use MIF signatures as tracers for chemical transformations in the environment. For this purpose the transfer of the isotope anomaly was followed through a wide range of different species and reservoirs. We studied the production during the formation of ozone in the atmosphere, the transfer to other important atmospheric trace species and its use as a tracer for these chemical transformations in water and ice cores.
Given the wide range of applications that can all be studied with one common, novel analytical tool, INTRAMIF was designed with a strong focus on interdisciplinary collaboration. The 8 PI groups from 5 countries included experts from molecular physics, atmospheric chemistry, paleoclimate research, polar sciences, hydrology and oceanography. In addition, 8 non-academic partners, again from very different areas, provided the link to the world outside academia. This was the community in which 13 Early Stage Researchers (ESR) obtained a unique training. At their host institutions, they obtained deep scientific insight at an internationally leading level on their specific research project. However, by design, these projects already included interdisciplinary aspect, and this interdisciplinary character was deepened during the INTRAMIF network training activities.
Two dedicated summer schools were developed especially for the INTRAMIF project. The first one, shortly after the start of the project, provided the scientific foundations of MIF in all the different disciplines. The teaching material of this summer school is unique because the field is still very new and no standard literature exists that covers all these different subjects. Therefore, the “INTRAMIF Summer School on Mass Independent Oxygen Isotope Fractionation”, held at the University of East Anglia, provided a unique teaching program for the ESR, which was also followed by many external PhD students from Europe, America and Asia. The PI’s are presently preparing to publish the teaching material as a book.
The second summer school “Science and Society”, organized by Commissariat Energie Atomique (CEA) and in cooperation with our non-academic partners and other non-academic participants, provided the ESRs with the real world perspective on the role of climate science in society. The summer school included contributions from large and medium sized industrial partners, (independent) government institutions, consultancies and think-tanks. The presentations covered a wide range of areas including the impact of climate change on economy, ecology, socio-economic systems and policy, sustainability and sustainable lifestyles and the transition to renewable energy systems. Presentations were followed by in-depth discussions. In addition to this summer school, the non-academic partners offered the ESRs training courses and short visits and played a very active role in the development and continuous updating of career plans.
Thus, the training program offered to the ESR of the INTRAMIF project was much more than what regular PhD students are offered at the host institutions only, and the group of PI’s is proud to have educated not only specialists in a certain area of science, but individuals who have had an unusual exposure to interdisciplinary work and approaches. This special training will enable them to successfully tackle the future challenges of our societies the related to climate change.
Besides the extraordinary training program the project has also yielded a number of highly exciting new scientific results, and some highlights are:
• A new method to measure the isotopic composition of tropospheric ozone was developed and applied to laboratory experiments, as well as several relevant environments with focus on the Arctic (papers by William Vicars). These results greatly improve our understanding on the isotopic composition of O3 in the atmosphere. In a closely related project facilitated by INTRAMIF, the transfer of the oxygen isotope signature from O3 to nitrogen oxides was determined, both in laboratory experiments and in the troposphere (papers by T. Berhanu).
• Unique sets of measurement of the 17O excess of water stored in Antarctic ice cores revealed large and unexpected variations, which allowed reconstruction of relative humidity at the source regions. The short-term variability points towards a signal from stratospheric water (papers by R. Winkler, one of them published in PNAS).
Please find the publishable summary also attached as a pdf.
The common goal of all the scientific projects within the INTRAMIF training network was to use MIF signatures as tracers for chemical transformations in the environment. For this purpose the transfer of the isotope anomaly was followed through a wide range of different species and reservoirs. We studied the production during the formation of ozone in the atmosphere, the transfer to other important atmospheric trace species and its use as a tracer for these chemical transformations in water and ice cores.
Given the wide range of applications that can all be studied with one common, novel analytical tool, INTRAMIF was designed with a strong focus on interdisciplinary collaboration. The 8 PI groups from 5 countries included experts from molecular physics, atmospheric chemistry, paleoclimate research, polar sciences, hydrology and oceanography. In addition, 8 non-academic partners, again from very different areas, provided the link to the world outside academia. This was the community in which 13 Early Stage Researchers (ESR) obtained a unique training. At their host institutions, they obtained deep scientific insight at an internationally leading level on their specific research project. However, by design, these projects already included interdisciplinary aspect, and this interdisciplinary character was deepened during the INTRAMIF network training activities.
Two dedicated summer schools were developed especially for the INTRAMIF project. The first one, shortly after the start of the project, provided the scientific foundations of MIF in all the different disciplines. The teaching material of this summer school is unique because the field is still very new and no standard literature exists that covers all these different subjects. Therefore, the “INTRAMIF Summer School on Mass Independent Oxygen Isotope Fractionation”, held at the University of East Anglia, provided a unique teaching program for the ESR, which was also followed by many external PhD students from Europe, America and Asia. The PI’s are presently preparing to publish the teaching material as a book.
The second summer school “Science and Society”, organized by Commissariat Energie Atomique (CEA) and in cooperation with our non-academic partners and other non-academic participants, provided the ESRs with the real world perspective on the role of climate science in society. The summer school included contributions from large and medium sized industrial partners, (independent) government institutions, consultancies and think-tanks. The presentations covered a wide range of areas including the impact of climate change on economy, ecology, socio-economic systems and policy, sustainability and sustainable lifestyles and the transition to renewable energy systems. Presentations were followed by in-depth discussions. In addition to this summer school, the non-academic partners offered the ESRs training courses and short visits and played a very active role in the development and continuous updating of career plans.
Thus, the training program offered to the ESR of the INTRAMIF project was much more than what regular PhD students are offered at the host institutions only, and the group of PI’s is proud to have educated not only specialists in a certain area of science, but individuals who have had an unusual exposure to interdisciplinary work and approaches. This special training will enable them to successfully tackle the future challenges of our societies the related to climate change.
Besides the extraordinary training program the project has also yielded a number of highly exciting new scientific results, and some highlights are:
• A new method to measure the isotopic composition of tropospheric ozone was developed and applied to laboratory experiments, as well as several relevant environments with focus on the Arctic (papers by William Vicars). These results greatly improve our understanding on the isotopic composition of O3 in the atmosphere. In a closely related project facilitated by INTRAMIF, the transfer of the oxygen isotope signature from O3 to nitrogen oxides was determined, both in laboratory experiments and in the troposphere (papers by T. Berhanu).
• Unique sets of measurement of the 17O excess of water stored in Antarctic ice cores revealed large and unexpected variations, which allowed reconstruction of relative humidity at the source regions. The short-term variability points towards a signal from stratospheric water (papers by R. Winkler, one of them published in PNAS).
Please find the publishable summary also attached as a pdf.