Current projects
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The Biogeochemistry group is currently involved in several research projects funded by the EU, the Research Council of Norway and the Centre for Climate Dynamics.
EU PROJECTS:
COMFORT
Our common future ocean in the Earthsystem – quantifying coupled cycles of carbon, oxygen, and nutrients for determiningand achieving safe operating spaces with respect to tipping points
09/2019 - 08/2023
COMFORT will close knowledge gaps for key ocean tipping elements within the Earth system under anthropogenic physical and chemical climate forcing through a coherent interdisciplinary research approach. It aims to provide added value to decision and policy makers in terms of science based safe marine operating spaces, refined climate mitigation targets, and feasible long-term mitigation pathways. The project focuses on the triple threat of (1) warming, (2) deoxygenation, and (3) ocean acidification, and how to optimally deal with this threat. Links to other Earth system reservoirs will be included in the assessment where relevant.
CRiceS
Climate Relevant interactions and feedbacks: the key role of sea ice and Snow in the polar and global climate system
09/2021-08/2025
The CRiceS project focuses on improving model predictions of the role of polar processes in the climate system that consists of the oceans, ice and snow cover, and the atmosphere. It is crucial to understand the role of the polar processes, such as feedback loops, in polar and global climate. One of the main ways scientists can improve our understanding of environmental change is to combine knowledge from different disciplines in a coordinated way.
ESM2025
Earth system models for the future
06/2021-05/2025
Earth system models for the future is an ambitious European research project on Earth System modelling that will build a novel generation of Earth system models fitted to support the development of mitigation and adaptation strategies in line with the commitments of the Paris Agreement.
ICOS
Integrated Carbon Observing System
EU FP7 Infrastructure Programme
ICOS is a research infrastructure that has been born out of European scientific communities’ grand idea of having a consistent, sustained measurement network operating under exactly the same technical and scientific standards to enable high-quality climate change research and increase usability of the research data.
INTAROS
Integrated Arctic Observation System
https://intaros.nersc.no/content/objectives-and-concept
The overall objective is to build an efficient integrated Arctic Observation System (iAOS) by extending, improving, and unifying existing systems in the different regions of the Arctic.
The objectives will be achieved by mobilizing and increasing cooperation between entities operating existing European and international observing systems and infrastructures (in-situ and space-based). INTAROS is implemented through a set of multidisciplinary workpackages covering the main spheres of the Arctic environment. In this process, the relevant stakeholder groups are engaged, including the climate, and forecasting modelling groups, environmental agencies, industry, decision makers and local communities.
OceanICU
Understanding Ocean Carbon
OceanICU is a Horizon Europe project aiming to produce new data, information and understanding on the role of the Ocean in the global carbon cycle.
The Horizon EU OceanICU is a five year project that seeks to gain a new understanding of the biological carbon pump and its processes in order to provide fundamental knowledge and tools to help policy makers, regulators and Ocean industry–fishing and mining, along with the wider blue economy–manage and understand the impact of their actions on Ocean carbon. This will ultimately lead to a better approach for addressing climate change in alignment with the EU Green Deal to reduce the net emissions of greenhouse gases to Zero by 2050.
TipESM
Exploring Tipping Points and their Impacts using Earth System Models
TipESM assembles the latest Earth System Models (ESMs), including recent improvements to key processes: ice sheets, vegetation and land use, permafrost, marine and terrestrial biogeochemistry. In cooperation with the WCRP/Future-Earth project TIPMIP, TipESM will organise an international collaboration to design and realise a common ESM experiment protocol that will facilitate analysis of the likelihood of occurrence, and potential reversibility, of tipping elements at different levels and duration of global warming. These experiments, will be combined with more project-specific ESM experiments, designed to investigate interactions and feedbacks across the Earth system.
Based on the TipESM experiments, existing simulations and observations, we will investigate tipping points, their driving processes, potential early warning signals and cascading effects across the climate, ecosystems and society. Including the most important components of the Earth system in our ESMs will also allow TipESM to identify potentially unknown tipping elements, their precursors and impacts.
VERIFY
Verifying greenhouse gas emissions
2019-2023
VERIFY develops a system to estimate greenhouse gas emissions to support countries’ emission reporting to the UN Climate Change Convention Secretariat. The emissions are estimated based on land, ocean and atmospheric observations. The project focuses on the three major greenhouse gases responsible for global warming: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O).
SEAS project (post-doc)
Shaping European Research Leaders for Marine Sustainability
2022-2025
SEAS is a career and mobility fellowship programme for 37 postdoctoral research fellows within marine sustainability. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101034309. Marine and coastal areas face multifaceted challenges, threatening biodiversity and humanity on a global scale. To have an impact on marine sustainability, there is an urgent need to integrate perspectives and insights from a diverse range of fields and sectors.
RESEARCH COUNCIL OF NORWAY PROJECTS:
KeyCLIM
Key Earth System Processes to understand Arctic Climate Warming and Northern Latitude Hydrological Cycle Changes
2020-2023
RCN
Understanding, quantifying, and reducing the uncertainty in projected northern latitude climate change, particularly Arctic amplification, through a nationally coordinated Earth system approach.
ICOS Norway
Key Earth System Processes to understand Arctic Climate Warming and Northern Latitude Hydrological Cycle Changes
RCN & EU FP7 Infrastructure Programme
https://www.icos-cp.eu/observations/national-networks/norway
The ICOS Norway network consists of four Ocean stations, two Atmosphere stations and one Ecosystem station. ICOS Norway has a particularly strong ocean focus since it operates four out of the 21 permanent ocean stations and hosts the Ocean Thematic Centre OTC
INES
Overturning circulation and its implications for global carbon cycle in coupled models
2018 - 06/2022
RCN
The project Infrastructure for Norwegian Earth System Modeling (INES) supports the further development of NorESM and helps Norwegian scientists also gain access to a cutting-edge earth system model in the years to come. Technical support will be provided for the use of a more refined grid, the ability to respond to climate change up to 10 years in advance, the inclusion of new processes at high latitudes and the ability of long-term projection of sea level.
The Nansen Legacy (Arven Etter Nansen)
Subpolar North Atlantic Climate States
2018 - 20xy
RCN & other partners
https://arvenetternansen.com/about-us/
The Nansen Legacy is a novel and holistic Arctic research project that will provide integrated scientific knowledge on the rapidly changing marine climate and ecosystem. A new knowledge base is required to facilitate a sustainable management of the northern Barents Sea and adjacent Arctic Basin through the 21st century.