UNPACK CLIMATE

UNraveling PAst Climate as a Key to understanding future CLIMATE

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Climate change is of growing public concern, and an important political priority of the European Union. In order to combat future climate change, it is vital to gain an improved understanding of natural variability, thresholds, and mechanisms in the integrated climate system. Such knowledge requires studying the geological record of the past. For my research I measure small atomic abundance variations of radiogenic isotopes to decipher past changes in ocean circulation patterns and ice sheet evolution on million-year to millennial time scales. The project UNPACK CLIMATE (UNraveling PAst Climate as a Key to understanding future CLIMATE) will address two fundamental questions in the integrated climate system. What is the role of the ocean during past rapid climate change events? The deep ocean stores and transports vast amounts of heat and carbon, and changes in its circulation are likely to influence global climate. Although there are numerous tracers of water mass position in the past we know very little about the flux of each water mass. This hurdle can be overcome by a new proxy I developed to decipher past ocean ventilation rates, combined neodymium isotopes and radiocarbon measurements from absolutely dated deep-sea corals. How stable was the East Antarctic ice sheet over the past 15 million years? The East Antarctic Ice Sheet contains the largest amount of freshwater on earth, and understanding its past stability and potential mechanisms of destabilization seem to be vital in the context of future global warming. The Pliocene warm period (4.5 – 3.0 Ma) was the last time Earth’s climate was significantly warmer than today. I will apply an innovative technique (provenance analyses of ice-rafted debris) to constrain Miocene to Pliocene (~14 – 1.8 Ma) extend and stability of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

EU-funded scientists studied marine sediment core samples in their investigation of the history of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet and the circulation of ocean currents. The resulting data will enable a clearer understanding of the future impacts of a changing climate.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Past changes in the Earth's climate are preserved in the geological record; understanding this data is the main aim of palaeoclimate and palaeoceanography research. By studying past climates scientists can learn about the variability, vulnerability and mechanisms of past climate systems.

The 'Unravelling past climate as a key to understanding future climate' (UNPACK CLIMATE) project investigated changes in ocean circulation and ice sheet evolution. Isotope geochemistry was used to measure small variations in the abundance of chemical elements to determine changes over million-year to millennial time scales.

Accurately dated deep sea corals, neodymium isotopes and radiocarbon measurements were used to provide information about the changes in the marine environment. The resulting data was used to achieve a clearer understanding of the role of the ocean during past rapid climate events.

The ocean's depths store and transport vast amounts of heat and carbon. Therefore, it is possible that any changes in circulation could have an effect on the global climate.

Researchers also studied the history of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet over the past 15 million years. This ice sheet contains the largest amount of freshwater on the planet. Therefore, understanding its past stability and possible mechanisms for instability are vital to determining the future impacts of global warming.

Marine sediment cores were used to reconstruct initial ice growth on Antarctica. The cores were also used to reconstruct the East Antarctic Ice Sheet during the Mid Pliocene warm period (around 3.3 to 3 million years ago).

UNPACK CLIMATE has resulted in 62 conference abstracts, 11 peer-reviewed journal articles and 4 additional non-peer-reviewed articles, with many more in preparation.

The project's findings will have important implications for understanding present and future climates. They will also help scientists and policymakers to mitigate the future effects of climate change.