Description of the organisation
The UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is the UK’s largest funder of independent environmental science, training and innovation, delivered through universities and research centres. The National Oceanography Centre (NOC, hereafter UKRI) is a world-leading research centre with expertise in oceans, biology, and geosciences. The centre provides long-term national and international marine science capability, including high-resolution modelling, research vessels, sustained observations, AUVs and data management. Established in 1993, NOC employs ca. 500 staff and hosts the under/postgraduate programs of the Universities of Southampton and of Liverpool, ca. 700 students pa.
Expertise particularly relevant for the project
UKRI provides internationally recognised expertise in ocean-sea-ice-biogeochemical model development, datasets and analysis (using NEMO-CICE-MEDUSA) and is a founder member of the EU NEMO (Nucleus for European Modelling of the Ocean) consortium. This facilitates the development of permafrost parameterisations in T1.3 and model configurations for T1.1/1.2/2.1/2.3. UKRI has also developed MEDUSA, an intermediate complexity biogeochemical (BGC) model that has been adopted by the UK Earth System Model (UKESM) Programme. The UKRI expertise will be instrumental for running and analysing high-resolution and long model integrations in T1.1/1.2/2.3/2.4. We are also partners in the UK ORCHESTRA and MESO-CLIP projects, which are employing the NEMO adjoint operator. Therefore, UKRI is able to detect the emergence of tipping point signals, forcing factors and multiple stressors (T1.1/1.2/2.3) and to examine their reversibility (T2.4), and their attribution (T2.1). Though the UK CLASS Programme (task PIs Brown, New, Sinha) and the APEAR project (a UK/BMBF programme, PI Aksenov), UKRI will make high-resolution forward ocean-BGC projections available for COMFORT. These will benefit T1.1/T1.2/T1.3/ T2.1. Furthermore, the UKRI research team covers sea-ice, ocean and biogeochemical modelling and observations, climate change and dynamics, physical and ecosystem variability, and the ocean uptake of carbon and its acidification, and is described in detail below.
For more information please visit NOC website.
Description of the organisation
The University of East Anglia’s (UEA) School of Environmental Sciences (ENV) is an internationally renowned centre for marine, atmospheric and climate research. In the 2014 UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise, 88% of our research was judged as world leading or internationally excellent, and we were placed 1st in the UK for research impact. UEA was ranked 1st in the world for academic citations by paper in the Earth and Marine Sciences in the 2018 QS World University Rankings.
Expertise particularly relevant for the project
The Centre for Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences in ENV brings together specialists in ocean and atmospheric physics and chemistry. Drs Dorothee Bakker and Matthew Humphreys are experts in the interactions of marine biogeochemical cycles with ocean physics and climate. Dorothee Bakker’s research has highlighted rapid changes in CO2 air-sea fluxes during seasonal ice melt. In 2011, she participated in a site survey of cold water corals on the Mingulay Reef Complex, Scotland, triggering her interest in these reef-building organisms on the Atlantic shelf edges. Bakker’s PhD students investigate topics as diverse as the impacts of ocean acidification and warming on marine pteropods, sea ice physics, biogeochemical sensors on gliders and floats, and carbon dynamics at the land- ocean interface. Matthew Humphreys is a specialist in seawater biogeochemistry and has produced 20+ seawater carbonate chemistry datasets from scientific research cruises. His theoretical work has provided new insights into the influences of temperature and biogeochemistry on ocean acidification and air-sea CO2 exchange. He has a strong background in scientific programming (MATLAB, Python, Fortran) and is familiar with analysis involving many varied datasets including GLODAPv2 (www.glodap.info), model output, and satellite data products. This analysis has let to new evaluations of the changes in the North Atlantic carbonate system and an improved understanding of the role of the northwest European shelf seas in exporting CO2 to the interior ocean.
For more information please visit UEA website.
Description of the organisation
Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) is an International Centre of Excellence in Marine Science & Technology and a Collaborative Centre of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) of the UK. The research at PML contributes to the issues of global change, sustainability and pollution delivering solutions for national and international marine and coastal programmes. PML is an independent, impartial provider of scientific research in the marine environment with a focus on understanding biodiversity and ecosystem function, biogeochemical cycling, pollution and health, and forecasting the role of the oceans in the Earth system.
Expertise particularly relevant for the project
PML has an outstanding reputation at a national and international level for its capabilities in the modelling of regional marine ecosystems, across scales, from estuarine and coastal environments to shelf seas and the open ocean, and across processes from physics to biogeochemistry and higher trophic levels. The modelling team consists of 16 individuals and it is recognised by NERC to deliver national modelling capability to the UK community. The PML modelling team is at the core of developing and maintaining the ERSEM model, a community biogeochemical model adopted as biogeochemical model for shelf sea environment by the UK National Partnership for Ocean Prediction (NPOP). PML has a longstanding expertise in downscaling the impact of climate change and ocean acidification to regional and local scales across all levels of the ecosystem.
For more information please visit PML website.
Description of the organisation
Marine and Freshwater Research Institute (MFRI) is a government institute under the auspices of the Ministry of Industries and Innovation. The institute employs around 200 staff, operates 2 research vessels and 10 branch offices. The main area of activities of the MRFI is to conduct research on the marine environment around Iceland and its living resources, to provide advice to government on sustainable exploitation of the living resources and conservation measures and to inform the government, the fishery sector and the public about the marine environment.
The research activities at the MRFI are organised into five main research sections. A large part of the work undertaken at the Environment Section is the monitoring of environmental conditions (temperature, salinity, nutrients, and carbonate chemistry) in Icelandic waters, marine geology, and the ecology of phytoplankton and macroalgae. MRFI has coordinated and participated in numerous national, Nordic and EU funded projects.
Expertise particularly relevant for the project
MFRI brings an expertise on the project in relevant chemical analyses and data analyses. MFRI is conducting a research cruise four times per year covering every season and continuing time series observations of carbonate chemistry and biogeochemical cycles in the Irminger and Iceland Seas.
For more information please visit MFRI website.