Changes in the ocean's biological pump: innovative models and diagnostics. This Project aims to quantify how the ocean’s biological pump, which exports newly formed organic matter into the ocean interior, responds to environmental change. The biological pump is a key control on the global carbon and oxygen cycles, and hence on the viability of marine life. New, efficient numerical models will be developed and analysed with highly innovative mathematical methods. Expected outcomes are optimised .... Changes in the ocean's biological pump: innovative models and diagnostics. This Project aims to quantify how the ocean’s biological pump, which exports newly formed organic matter into the ocean interior, responds to environmental change. The biological pump is a key control on the global carbon and oxygen cycles, and hence on the viability of marine life. New, efficient numerical models will be developed and analysed with highly innovative mathematical methods. Expected outcomes are optimised predictive models and a new understanding of the possible future evolutions of the ocean carbon cycle, acidification, and oxygenation. This should provide significant benefits such as predictions of future ocean health, identification of processes that are sensitive to change, and strategies for marine resource management.Read moreRead less
Dust to the ocean: Does it really increase productivity? This project aims to investigate the relationship between dust deposition and marine productivity. This project will quantify dust deposition to the ocean and its chemical and ecological impact by using new geochemical techniques and novel approaches with autonomous ocean sensors. Expected outcomes of this project include improved estimates of dust deposition to the ocean and the development of globally-applicable methods for quantifying t ....Dust to the ocean: Does it really increase productivity? This project aims to investigate the relationship between dust deposition and marine productivity. This project will quantify dust deposition to the ocean and its chemical and ecological impact by using new geochemical techniques and novel approaches with autonomous ocean sensors. Expected outcomes of this project include improved estimates of dust deposition to the ocean and the development of globally-applicable methods for quantifying the link between dust and biology using profiling floats. This should provide significant benefits such as improved dust models used to predict future changes in nutrient deposition, with implications for predicting future ocean fish production and carbon uptake.Read moreRead less
Ocean fertilisation: a positive effect from Antarctica’s great thaw? This project will evaluate how the Antarctica's great thaw may fertilise the Southern Ocean with iron and help mitigate carbon dioxide emissions now and in the future. The Southern Ocean is anaemic, meaning that the iron levels are too low to sustain photosynthesis, a pathway by which the oceans transform carbon dioxide into carbon-rich sediments. There is evidence that melting ice may supply substantial amount of iron, capable ....Ocean fertilisation: a positive effect from Antarctica’s great thaw? This project will evaluate how the Antarctica's great thaw may fertilise the Southern Ocean with iron and help mitigate carbon dioxide emissions now and in the future. The Southern Ocean is anaemic, meaning that the iron levels are too low to sustain photosynthesis, a pathway by which the oceans transform carbon dioxide into carbon-rich sediments. There is evidence that melting ice may supply substantial amount of iron, capable of boosting marine life and removing carbon dioxide. As polar regions show the earliest and most severe impacts of anthropogenic activity, studying ice-ocean interactions is central to supporting national and international policy development that can effectively limit the worst impacts of climate change globally. Read moreRead less
Using the last glacial cycle to understand carbon-climate feedbacks . This project aims to investigate how the ocean’s carbon cycle will respond to anthropogenic climate change by examining its response to past climate variability. The project expects to generate new records of the dust feedback cycle and the microbial decomposition feedback cycle in the poorly studied Indian sector of the Southern Ocean. Expected outcomes include new datasets to test climate models, and a new method to detect t ....Using the last glacial cycle to understand carbon-climate feedbacks . This project aims to investigate how the ocean’s carbon cycle will respond to anthropogenic climate change by examining its response to past climate variability. The project expects to generate new records of the dust feedback cycle and the microbial decomposition feedback cycle in the poorly studied Indian sector of the Southern Ocean. Expected outcomes include new datasets to test climate models, and a new method to detect temperature-driven changes in microbial decomposition. This should lead to significant benefits including more accurate estimates of how much carbon humanity can safely emit, and the science to inform whether Australia should adopt ocean fertilisation as a strategy to combat climate change. Read moreRead less