Annex 2
MARINE CONSORTIUM
GRANTS
Atlantic Meridional Transect (AMT) Consortium
(2002-06)
A consortium designed to analyse annual and
longer-term variability in ocean ecology and biogeochemistry (especially
linked to plankton populations and the turnover of organic matter)
in the context of climate change.
ECOMAR CONSORTIUM
(2006-09)
Ecosystems of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at the Sub-Polar
Front and Charlie Gibbs Fracture Zone
A project investigating how physical and biogeochemical
factors, including topography, currents and organic input, influence
the distributions and structure of deep-sea communities, focusing
on the fauna of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR).
PAIN CONSORTIUM
(2005-09)
"Next Generation" Unstructured-mesh
Ocean Global Circulation Modelling
A project to build a next-generation ocean global
circulation model that has more detailed resolution than existing
models. It will be capable, among other things, of resolving flows
simultaneously on global, basin, regional, and process scales,
and will have a wide range of applications in oceanography, climate
change, flood defence, pollution and contaminant dispersal, the
analysis of water quality and the sustainability of fisheries.
WILLIAMS CONSORTIUM
(2005-09)
Transport and storage of nutrients, carbon and
heat in the subtropical North Atlantic ocean
This interdisciplinary consortium is addressing
how the climate system is controlled in the subtropical North
Atlantic Ocean by looking at the transport of heat, nutrients
and carbon. The survey will complement RAPID- and AMT-supported
surveys, and the three datasets will be analysed together. The
controlling processes will be identified by taking targeted biogeochemical
observations and their wider impact assessed by integrating circulation
and biogeochemical models.
Chemosynthetically-driven ecosystems south of
the Polar Front: biogeography and ecology (2008-12)
The consortium will study four contrasting chemosynthetic
ecosystems in Antarctica south of the Polar Front. Analysis will
compare the hydrothermal and seep chemistry of the four sites,
determine the phylogeography of species, and examine the food
web processes. The study will determine whether colonisation of
vents and seeps, in these most isolated of chemosynthetically-driven
ecosystems, is driven by oceanographic or tectonic processes or
whether any site is, instead, host to completely isolated evolution.
Subduction zone segmentation and controls on earthquake
rupture: The 2004 and 2005 Sumatra earthquakes (2006-11)
The Sumatran earthquake of December 2004 was
the second-largest earthquake on record. The growing populations
in regions prone to great earthquakes make it a matter of urgency
to study the processes that control them. The Sumatran earthquake
is the first to which modern geophysical tools can be applied,
so offers a unique opportunity for such study. The consortium
will examine the influence of plate boundaries (which divide tectonic
plates into segments) on the spread of earthquakes, asking what
determines whether an earthquake stays within one segment of plate
boundary (and remains relatively small), or jumps across barriers
between segments (to become a large earthquake).
DIMES: Diapycnal and Isopycnal Mixing Experiment
in the Southern Ocean (2008-12)
One of the most important elements of ocean
circulation is what scientists know as the "meridional overturning
circulation" (MOC). This term describes the cooling and resulting
sinking of surface water masses in high-latitude regions, their
journey through the deep ocean and their eventual warming and
return to the surface, after many decades or centuries. The MOC
is important to climate because the water masses involved in this
long circuit through the ocean carry with them heat, CO2 and other
significant substances such as plant nutrients, which in this
way are distributed around the planet and locked away in the deep
ocean for long periods of time.
Perhaps the stage of the MOC that puzzles scientists
the most, and one of the most serious challenges to the reliability
of climate simulations, is the return of deep water masses to
the surface. To achieve a breakthrough in this problem, the consortium
will directly measure mixing processes in the Southern Ocean and
their effect on ocean circulation. These measurements, together
with others, will help to answer several key questions.
Dynamics of gas hydrates in polar marine environments
(2007-09)
Almost half of the Earth's carbon is stored
in gas hydrates and related shallow gas deposits. Numerical models
predict that this reservoir is highly mobile and that escaping
gas has a significant potential to accelerate climate change by
releasing as much as 2000 Gt of methane over a short period of
time. As methane is a potent greenhouse gas it would cause further
global warming. Arctic gas hydrates are particularly vulnerable
to future climate change. The consortium aims to quantify the
present amount of gas hydrates through seismic methods, to measure
current methane flux from the seabed to the atmosphere, to detect
the effects of postglacial warming on the gas hydrate system,
and to predict the effect of a range of future temperature changes
on the gas hydrates. This information will allow a detailed assessment
of the mobility of Arctic gas hydrates and significantly decrease
the uncertainties involved in climate modelling.
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