PLEASE NOTE: Application deadline date 08 Jan 2024. Applications are no longer being accepted for this project
Project Overview
Thanks to plankton-based ocean ecosystems, massive amounts of carbon sink out of the surface ocean and are distributed through the ocean’s interior. How much carbon reaches what depths is critical to atmospheric CO2, and therefore climate. You will synthesise existing knowledge to estimate this carbon transport from satellite data.
Project Description
Thanks to the action of plankton-based ocean ecosystems, each year several gigatons of carbon are transported from the surface ocean into the ocean interior, where this carbon is stored for decades to millenia. The storage of this carbon is a critical control on the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and therefore on Earth’s climate. This process of carbon transport is also poorly understood and highly variable. Recent studies (Cael 2021 L&O:L, Cael et al. 2021 GRL, Cael et al. 2018 GBC) suggest that this process, including its variability, can be predicted accurately from remote sensing data from Earth-observing satellites. The student will use these published relationships and combine them with satellite data, along with other published relationships between ocean carbon transport and factors in the environment. Through this effort the student will generate the first data-constrained estimate of how much carbon is transported into the ocean interior by plankton ecosystems, the variability of this process, and map these over space, depth, and time. The student will then have ample opportunity to pursue further questions that arise from this project, or novel applications of the product that they have created. The student will be embedded in a large international consortium project of world-class carbon cycle scientists, and will have the opportunity to gain a variety of in-demand computational skills.
The INSPIRE DTP programme provides comprehensive personal and professional development training alongside extensive opportunities for students to expand their multi-disciplinary outlook through interactions with a wide network of academic, research and industrial/policy partners. The student will be registered at the University of Southampton and hosted at the National Oceanography Centre, in the department of Ocean Biogeosciences. Specific training will include:
– Skills development in the in-demand areas of quantitative analysis of climate- and environment-relevant data.
– Development of a broad understanding of the topical STEM areas of the carbon cycle, oceanography, climate, satellite remote sensing, data science, and statistics.
– Special training in cutting-edge computational techniques from dedicated specialists through the CALIPSO project with which this project is associated. The student will be part fo the CALIPSO team.
– Development of the general skill to conduct scientific research, addressing an important question, from start to finish.
– Attendance of regular CALIPSO project meetings with its global consortium of world-leading carbon cycle scientists.
– Opportunities for fieldwork on research cruises to gain first-hand experience with the measurements being analysed in the project.
– Opportunities to develop skills and be involved in scientific publishing.
– Opportunities to gain expertise in the in-demand area of climate and Earth system modelling, and the interface between Earth observations and models, through interactions with CALIPSO collaborators.
Cael, B. B., Bisson, K., Conte, M., Duret, M. T., Follett, C. L., Henson, S. A., ... & Talmy, D. (2021). Open ocean particle flux variability from surface to seafloor. Geophysical Research Letters, 48(9), e2021GL092895.
Cael, B. B. (2021). Variability‐based constraint on ocean primary production models. Limnology and Oceanography Letters, 6(5), 262-269.
Cael, B. B., Bisson, K., & Follett, C. L. (2018). Can rates of ocean primary production and biological carbon export be related through their probability distributions?. Global biogeochemical cycles, 32(6), 954-970.
