Objective
The purpose of the project is to predict patterns of changing climate and vegetation that will occur in Eurasia if global warming returns the Arctic Ocean to the warm state that appears to have existed in the Late Mesozoic. This will provide rigorous validation of the models and improve the understanding of climate and vegetation dynamics over time. This will be achieved using a synergistic combination of computer modelling and factual geologic data. The objectives are:
to characterise the nature of the previous (late Mesozoic) warm Arctic Ocean using palaeontological and sedimentological data;
to characterise the Eurasian circum-Arctic vegetation and climate for the late Mesozoic using geological data;
to model the influence of a warm Arctic Ocean on the Eurasian circum-Arctic vegetation, sedimentary facies and climate of the late Mesozoic using state-of-the-art climate and vegetation computer models in a coupled mode, and as such, improving the predictive ability of the coupled models;
to use these models to predict the climatic and vegetational effects in Europe and Russia caused by a future return to warm water circulation in the Arctic Basin.
The geological data will be acquired by literature and field studies. Fieldwork over two seasons will examine four key areas in northeastern Asia in respect of their sedimentological, palaeopedological, and palaeobotanical records. Climate-independent dating of rocks in these areas will be achieved by single crystal Ar / Ar analysis.
The climate model used will be that of the British Universities Group Atmospheric Modelling Project (UGAMP, a derivative of the European Centre for Medium Term Weather Forecasting model) and the vegetation model will be the Mapped Atmosphere-Plant-Soil System (MAPSS) developed at the Environmental Protection Agency, Corvallis, Oregon, USA. A comparison will be made of the climate signals obtained from the geological data and that predicted by the models.
The expected results are a fully functional robust climate model with the capability to explicitly predict vegetation under a range of climates likely to impact Eurasia; at least five scientific papers relating to circum-Arctic Eurasian vegetation and climate; dissemination of results of the work in electronic form (CD ROM and/or Internet) for use in educational establishments, etc.; and to refine resource prediction (by using AGCM) in a key area for current and future exploration of rocks for oil and gas, based on.organic rich marine sediments (including phosphorites) which are formed adjacent to upwelling sites in the seas and oceans.
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
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MK7 6AA Milton Keynes
United Kingdom