ERC FUNDED PROJECTS

Alkenones are algal lipids that have been used for decades to reconstruct quantitative past sea surface temperature. Although alkenones are being discovered in an increasing number of lake sites worldwide, only two terrestrial temperature records have been reconstructed so far. The development of this research field is limited by the lack of interdisciplinary research that combines modern biological and ecological algal research with the organic geochemical techniques needed to develop a quantitative biomarker (or molecular fossil) for past lake temperatures. More research is needed for alkenones to become a widely used tool for reconstructing past terrestrial temperature change. The early career Principal Investigator has discovered a new lake alkenone-producing species of haptophyte algae that produces alkenones in high abundances both in the environment and in laboratory cultures. This makes the new species an ideal organism for developing a culture-based temperature calibration and exploring other potential environmental controls. In this project, alkenone production will be manipulated, and monitored using state-of-the-art photobioreactors with real-time detectors for cell density, light, and temperature. The latest algal culture and isolation techniques that are used in microalgal biofuel development will be applied to developing the lake temperature proxy. The objectives will be achieved through the analysis of 90 new Canadian lakes to develop a core-top temperature calibration across a large latitudinal and temperature gradient (Δ latitude = 5°, Δ spring surface temperature = 9°C). The results will be used to assess how regional palaeo-temperature (Uk37), palaeo-moisture (δDwax) and palaeo-evaporation (δDalgal) respond during times of past global warmth (e.g., Medieval Warm Period, 900-1200 AD) to find an accurate analogue for assessing future drought risk in the interior of Canada.

940 883 €

Start date: 2015-04-01, End date: 2020-03-31

Key words: Atmospheric secondary organic aerosol, chemical ionization mass spectrometry The increase in anthropogenic atmospheric aerosol since the industrial revolution has considerably mitigated the global warming caused by concurrent anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. However, the uncertainty in the magnitude of the aerosol climate influence is larger than that of any other man-made climate-perturbing component. Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) is one of the most prominent aerosol types, yet a detailed mechanistic understanding of its formation process is still lacking. We recently presented the ground-breaking discovery of a new important compound group in our publication in Nature: a prompt and abundant source of extremely low-volatility organic compounds (ELVOC), able to explain the majority of the SOA formed from important atmospheric precursors. Quantifying the atmospheric role of ELVOCs requires further focused studies and I will start a research group with the main task of providing a comprehensive, quantitative and mechanistic understanding of the formation and evolution of SOA. Our recent discovery of an important missing component of SOA highlights the need for comprehensive chemical characterization of both the gas and particle phase composition. This project will use state-of-the-art chemical ionization mass spectrometry (CIMS), which was critical also in the detection of the ELVOCs. We will extend the applicability of CIMS techniques and conduct innovative experiments in both laboratory and field settings using a novel suite of instrumentation to achieve the goals set out in this project. We will provide unprecedented insights into the compounds and mechanisms producing SOA, helping to decrease the uncertainties in assessing the magnitude of aerosol effects on climate. Anthropogenic SOA contributes strongly to air quality deterioration as well and therefore our results will find direct applicability also in this extremely important field.

1 892 221 €

Start date: 2015-03-01, End date: 2020-02-29

DEEP TIME will unearth a record of geological time that is buried thousands of kilometres deep. The seafloor that covers two-thirds of the earth's surface is a tiny fraction of all seafloor created during its history – the rest has sunk back into the viscous mantle. Slabs of subducted seafloor carry a record of surface history: how continents and oceans were configured over time and where their tectonic plate boundaries lay. DEEP TIME will follow former surface oceans as far back in time as the convecting mantle system will permit, by imaging subducted slabs down to the core with cutting-edge seismological techniques. Current tectonic plate reconstructions incorporate little if any of this deep structural information, which probably reaches back 300+ million years; they are based on present-day seafloor, which constrains only the past 100-150 million years. DEEP TIME will match deep slab structure to the geological surface record of subduction – volcanic arcs and other crustal slivers that stayed afloat, survived collisions, and form the world’s largest mountain belts. Integrating these two direct records of subduction, the project will * Add paleo-trenches to existing plate reconstructions and extend them 2-3 times longer into the past. * Produce a 3-D atlas of the mantle that matches subducted seafloor with paleo-oceans inferred by land geology. * Rigorously test the hypothesis of vertical slab sinking, which may yield an absolute mantle reference frame. Tomographic models and geological land records will be synthesized into quantitative and testable paleogeographic reconstructions that complement and extend existing ones, especially in paleo-oceanic areas. This is likely to transform our understanding of the earth’s physical surface environment and biosphere during Mesozoic times, as well as the formation of natural resources. It also will put observational constraints on elusive mantle rheologies. Nearly every subdiscipline of the earth sciences could benefit.

1 438 846 €

Start date: 2015-08-01, End date: 2020-07-31

Plate tectonics has been a fundamental tenet of Earth Science for nearly 50 years, but fundamental questions remain, such as where is the base of the plate and what makes a plate, “plate-like?” A better understanding of the transition from the rigid lithospheric plate to the weaker mantle beneath – the rheological lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary (LAB) - has important implications for the driving forces of plate tectonics, natural hazard mitigation, mantle dynamics, the evolution of the planet, and climate change. There are many proxies used to estimate the depth and nature of the base of tectonic plates, but to date no consensus has been reached. For example, temperature is known to have a strong effect on the mechanical behaviour of rocks. However, it has also been suggested that the chemical composition of the plate provides additional strength or that melt weakens the mantle beneath the plate. We are at a critical juncture where large-scale efforts using geophysical, geochemical, and geological techniques are being launched to better understand the definition of the tectonic plate. The simple and short history of the ocean plate makes it the ideal location to advance our understanding. However, imaging the oceanic LAB has proved challenging given the remoteness of the oceans and associated difficulties in instrumentation. Most observations come from only one ocean, the Pacific, from indirect, remote observations, at different areas and scales. I propose a large-scale effort to systematically image an oceanic plate beneath the Atlantic from birth at ridge to 40 My old seafloor. I will deploy ocean bottom seismometers (OBS) and magnetotelluric (MT) instruments, and I will image the plate at a range of resolution scales (laterally and in depth) and sensitivities to physical and chemical properties. This large, focused, interdisciplinary effort will finally determine the processes and properties that make a plate strong and define it.

1 827 855 €

Start date: 2016-04-01, End date: 2021-03-31

Non-compliance with the EU’s environmental rules is one of the key weaknesses of the EU’s environmental policy. This research investigates the influence that environmental governance laws have on compliance decisions, and how we might best design our laws to maximise compliance. One of the most important trends in European environmental regulatory techniques over the past decade has been the shift from hierarchical, state-led government via command-and-control techniques, to decentralised, society-led governance by local private actors (see, e.g., Jordan et al (2013)). The EU has strongly supported efforts to empower compliance and enforcement by non-State actors, as embodied in the UNECE Aarhus Convention and implementing laws. Yet little is known about how this major change in environmental governance laws has actually influenced compliance levels in practice, and why. Can the design of environmental governance rules influence us not only to comply with the letter of the law, but also to go further? This research seeks to fill that gap by means of an interdisciplinary, bottom-up study of the relationships between the legal architecture of environmental governance and compliance decisions, in a selected field of EU environmental policy (biodiversity), and in three selected States. It is novel in terms of theory, because it tests new hypotheses about the effects environmental governance rules have on compliance. It is novel in terms of methodology, because in testing these hypotheses, it uses techniques that have not up to now been applied to measure the effect of law. It is challenging, because it sits at the intersection between the law and economics, socio-legal and governance/regulatory literatures, and brings together multiple methods from these fields to test its hypotheses. It has potentially high impact, because non-compliance is one of the most serious problems the EU’s environmental policy faces, and is closely linked to environmental outcomes.

1 494 650 €

Start date: 2015-07-01, End date: 2021-06-30

Aim of this project is to understand the connection between endogenic and exogenic processes of our planet that led to the redox contrast between Earth’s surface and interior. For this purpose the time constraints on atmospheric oxygenation can be refined and for the first time linked with a new approach to Earth’s endogenic processes like plate tectonics, mantle melting, volcanism, continent formation and subduction-related sediment- and crust recycling. These objectives will be achieved by using the unique geochemical capabilities of the selenium (Se) isotope system to unlock the geological record of changing oxygen fugacities in the mantle-crust-atmosphere reservoirs. The power of the Se isotope system lies in its redox sensitivity and in the volatile and highly siderophile/chalcophile character of elemental Se. This links Se to the evolution of other volatiles during key geological processes from Earth formation ca. 4.5 Ga ago until today. The occurrence and behavior of Se is fully controlled by accessory micrometric sulfide minerals in the silicate Earth, which may conserve their original Se isotopic signatures over large geological timescales and can be dated via the 187Re-187Os geochronometer. This offers high resolutions in time and space that are groundbreaking for research on Earth System Oxygenation. Covering Earth geologic history, new high-precision Se isotope data of the sedimentary and representative mantle-derived magmatic rock record from all major plate tectonic settings will be combined with the mineral-scale record of robust and global “time capsules” such as diamond inclusions. Once the evolution into todays dynamic Earth’s Redox System is understood, the investigation will be pushed back in time to Earth’s formation. This involves a reconciliation of the meteoritic and Archean rock and mineral-scale Se isotope record to constrain the origin of volatiles essential for the oceans, generation of an atmosphere and development of life on our planet.

1 498 353 €

Start date: 2015-03-01, End date: 2021-02-28

Sediments preserve a history of the evolution of the Earth’s surface and its response to a changing climate – a history that can only be read reliably if we know the age of the sediments. Luminescence dating is widely used in quaternary geology and archaeology, and is applicable to almost all sediments from the last 0.5 Ma – it dates the last time the sediment grains were exposed to daylight. RELOS will improve the reliability of luminescence dating by determining the sources of unexpected spread (over-dispersion) in measured doses derived from sand-sized grains. New hypotheses concerning charge imbalance, charge transport and dose calibration of luminescence signals will be tested by: (i) quantifying the effect of grain size and irradiation geometry/quality on grain-to-grain dose dispersion, and particularly the importance of charge particle equilibrium at these scales; (ii) quantifying dispersion arising from grain-to-grain variations in environmental dose rate; (iii) developing measurement procedures giving the same luminescence response per unit dose as in nature; (iv) developing a dispersion budget and new conceptual/numerical models for luminescence production based on (i) to (iii); and (v) testing the results of these investigations using well-defined natural samples. This project investigates fundamental issues of charge (de)trapping and recombination at small scales that have been completely ignored in previous studies, and problems of luminescence response that are sidestepped in the literature, in part by the unsatisfactory approach of arbitrary data rejection. These studies will result in major improvements in our understanding of the small-scale dosimetry of mixed radiation fields and a step change in the reliability of single-grain luminescence ages. The project links these fundamental studies to clear outcomes of considerable potential value to a variety of fields including earth sciences, archaeology and palaeoanthropology.

1 314 963 €

Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2020-08-31

Deep water formed around the Antarctic continent drives the world ocean circulation. 50-70% of this deep water is formed within only about 10% of the Antarctic circumpolar band: the Weddell Sea. Subtle changes in the circulation of the Weddell Sea can lead to major changes in floating ice-shelves, with critical implications for global sea-level, the production of deep water and the global ocean overturning circulation. Despite these critical climate implications, the Antarctic shelf circulation remains poorly understood. I propose an ambitious project at the crossroads of experimental and numerical oceanography. By drawing on the strengths of each discipline I will explore the regional water-mass pathways in the Weddell Sea: an unchartered cornerstone for understanding the polar ocean circulation and its links to global climate. A key issue facing climate scientists will be addressed: “What sets the tridimensional water-mass structure and pathways in the Weddell Sea and modulates the flow of deep waters between the Antarctica ice-shelves and the global ocean circulation?” To address this question I propose to investigate several key aspects of the Weddell Sea system: the dynamical forcing of the Weddell gyre and its response to atmospheric variability; the forcing and the circulation on the continental shelf and its interaction with the gyre; and the time-scale and mixing associated with bottom water sinking along the continental shelf. WAPITI approaches these objectives through a series of innovations, including (i) an ambitious field experiment to investigate the shelf circulation and processes, (ii) a powerful conceptual framework applied for the first time to a realistic eddy-resolving model of the Weddell gyre, and (iii) a novel instrument that will be developed to directly observe the sinking of deep water into the abyssal ocean for the first time. Collectively, the project will contribute a new insight into global climate feedbacks.

1 998 125 €

Start date: 2015-05-01, End date: 2021-04-30