Description du projet
Étudier le rôle des flux sédimentaires d’oligo-éléments dans la biogéochimie et le climat océaniques
Les oligo-éléments et les isotopes (TEI) participent aux cycles du carbone et de l’oxygène de la Terre et sont d’une grande importance pour l’étude du système océanique et de ses interactions avec d’autres composants du système terrestre. Afin de mieux prédire les futurs changements de la biogéochimie et du climat océaniques, il est crucial d’incorporer les TEI dans des modèles globaux de pointe. Toutefois, les connaissances lacunaires des scientifiques concernant les flux des sources et des puits de TEI à l’interface sédiments-eau constituent un obstacle significatif. Le projet SedTraceFlux, financé par l’UE, vise ainsi à contraindre les flux sédimentaires de TEI et à fournir des paramétrages robustes de ces flux, adaptés à des modèles globaux. Le projet se focalisera sur les TEI tels que le fer, le néodyme, le zinc et leurs isotopes respectifs. Les résultats du projet bénéficieront aux décideurs politiques européens dans les domaines de l’océan et du climat.
Objectif
Trace elements and isotopes (TEIs) are powerful tools for studying the ocean system and tracing its interaction with the other Earth System components. Many TEIs exert influence on the surface environment by participating in the global carbon and oxygen cycles. Incorporating TEIs into state-of-the-art global models is thus crucial to better predict future changes of ocean biogeochemistry and climate. This effort, however, is hampered by our limited understanding of the source and sink fluxes of TEIs across the sediment-water interface, which are recently hypothesised to play much greater roles in setting the distributions of TEIs in the ocean than previously assumed. Yet insufficient knowledge results in large uncertainties in model implementations of sedimentary fluxes, severely limiting the applications of marine TEIs. The objectives of SedTraceFlux are to constrain the sedimentary TEI fluxes and provide robust parameterizations of such fluxes suitable for global models. This project will focus on iron, neodymium, zinc and their respective isotopes, which are among the most useful TEI tools in oceanography. I will model the chemical speciation and the processes controlling the distributions of these TEIs in sediment pore water and solid phases. The resulting mechanistic parameterizations of sedimentary fluxes will be fine-tuned using Transport Matrix Methods in global biogeochemical modelling. The modelling effort will be complemented by generation of sedimentary Fe data from under-sampled locations. This project represents an ideal synergy between my ability in geochemical modelling and sediment geochemistry, and the expertise of the host group in a broad range of chemical, isotopic and global modelling approaches. It will enhance my innovative potential toward an independent researcher and strengthen the host’s international network and mobility. The results will also help inform the ocean and climate policy-making of the European Union.
Champ scientifique
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MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinateur
8092 Zuerich
Suisse