Controls over Ocean Mesopelagic Interior Carbon Storage

Controls over Ocean Mesopelagic Interior Carbon Storage

COMICS is a five-year collaborative research project that aims to quantify the flow of carbon in the ocean’s ‘twilight’ zone in order to more accurately model global climate change. This ‘twilight’ zone is the part of the ocean between 100m and 1000m below the sea surface, where only a small amount of light from the sun can still penetrate.

It is currently known that the efficiency of carbon transport from the atmosphere through this zone is key to regulating atmospheric CO2 levels. However, the processes that control the efficiency of biological storage of carbon in the deep ocean are not well known, which is an obstacle to predicting how they may change.

By investigating carbon dynamics in the ocean interior, COMICS will help to improve predictions of future global climate change.

Our aim

By building on previous work with new data from two research cruises and exploiting new technologies COMICS will shed light on carbon transport processes in the twilight zone. COMICS will integrate modelling and new data from two research cruises in the tropical Atlantic and Southern Ocean.

Our approach

COMICS will make observations at sea of particle flux and quantify interior biological processes using stable isotopes. It will apply organic geochemical and molecular biological techniques to samples collected using nets and traps.

The COMICS project will be led by the National Oceanography Centre and is a collaboration between the British Antarctic Survey and the universities of Queen Mary London, Liverpool, Oxford and Southampton. The project has received funding from the Natural Environmental Research Council and will run between April 2017 and 2022.

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Contact

comics@noc.ac.uk
#COMICS_Carbon

 
NOC is the UK’s centre of excellence in marine science and undertakes world-class research in an Earth system context.

HOW WE WORK

 

 

COMICS WILL IMPROVE OUR UNDERSTANDING OF GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE

 

 

The Team International collaboration and world-class expertise

The COMICS project will be led by the National Oceanography Centre and is a collaboration between the British Antarctic Survey and the universities of Queen Mary London, Liverpool, Oxford and Southampton. The project has received funding from the Natural Environmental Research Council and will run between April 2017 and 2022.


Principal Investigators

Prof. Richard Sanders
National Oceanography Centre and NORCE Norwegian Research Centre
Principal investigator

Prof. Stephanie Henson
National Oceanography Centre
Principal investigator

Dr Sarah Giering
National Oceanography Centre
Principal investigator

Work Package Leaders

Richard Lampitt
National Oceanography Centre
Work Package 1 Leader

Alex Poulton
Heriot Watt University
Work Package 2 Leader

Dan Mayor
National Oceanography Centre
Work Package 3 Leader

Geraint Tarling
British Antarctic Survey
Work Package 4 Leader

Tom Anderson
National Oceanography Centre
Work Package 6 Leader

Adrian Martin
National Oceanography Centre
Work Package 7 Leader

Andrew Yool
National Oceanography Centre
Work Package 8 Leader

Project partners International collaboration and world-class expertise

The COMICS project will be led by the National Oceanography Centre and is a collaboration between the British Antarctic Survey and the universities of Queen Mary London, Liverpool, Oxford and Southampton. The project has received funding from the Natural Environmental Research Council and will run between April 2017 and 2022.