Collaborative Research: The Role of Ice Sheet Instability in Marine Carbon and Nutrient Cycling in the Eurasian Arctic

由于人类造成的二氧化碳排放，北极正在经历地球上一些最快、最剧烈的变化，包括海冰迅速减少、冰川退缩和海洋环流模式的变化。这些变化从根本上重新组织了北极海洋碳和营养循环。对这些周期的长期影响尚不清楚。这个项目将帮助我们了解冰川不稳定如何影响生态系统和海洋化学，对格陵兰岛和加拿大北极地区未来的变化有潜在的影响。我们将利用这个项目创建旨在“将极地地区带到美国南部和中西部”的教育活动。关于北极变化的教学提供了一个独特的机会，让学生和公众了解人类造成的气候变化的影响。我们还将提供研究机会和指导学生，帮助他们成为下一代极地科学家。该项目将利用海洋沉积物的沉积记录，调查过去16万年欧亚北极边缘地区气候变化事件与碳和营养物质的陆-海-冰交换途径之间的联系。叶尔马克高原和巴伦支海斜坡的沉积记录记录了碳和营养循环的显著扰动，包括具有不同地球化学和沉积学成分的多次突变沉积物输送事件。我们将确定这些沉积物事件的来源和影响，以评估海洋碳和营养循环如何受到冰川退缩和不稳定的干扰。该项目将利用粘土矿物学和地球化学（放射性同位素）技术重建沉积物随时间变化的来源。我们将把这些结果与碳和养分循环的地球化学记录进行比较，以确定变化的沉积物来源的影响。在肯特州立大学，项目数据将被纳入新的和现有的本科课程。在佛罗里达大学，极地海洋活动将被纳入佛罗里达自然历史博物馆的开放日。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Arctic is experiencing some of the fastest and most dramatic changes on Earth in response to human-caused carbon dioxide emissions, including rapid reduction of sea ice, retreat of glaciers, and changing ocean circulation patterns. These changes are fundamentally re-organizing Arctic marine carbon and nutrient cycles. The long-term impacts on these cycles are unclear. This project will help us understand how glacial instability impacts ecosystems and ocean chemistry, with potential implications for future changes in Greenland and the Canadian Arctic. We will use this project to create educational activities designed to “bring the polar regions to the Southern and Midwest US.” Teaching about Arctic change provides a unique chance to teach students and the general public about the impacts of human-caused climate change. We will also provide research opportunities and mentor students who will help make up the next generation of polar scientists. This project will use the sedimentary record from marine sediments to investigate the links between climate change events and the land-sea-ice exchange pathways of carbon and nutrients within the Eurasian Arctic margin over the past 160 thousand years. The sedimentary record from locations on the Yermak Plateau and Barents Sea slope documents significant perturbations to carbon and nutrient cycles including multiple abrupt sediment delivery events with distinct geochemical and sedimentological compositions. We will determine the source and impact of these sediment events to evaluate how marine carbon and nutrient cycles are perturbed by glacial retreat and instability. This project will use clay mineralogy and geochemical (radiogenic isotopes) techniques to reconstruct the changing sources of sediments through time. We will compare these results with geochemical records of carbon and nutrient cycling to determine the impacts of a changing sediment source. At Kent State, project data will be incorporated into new and existing undergraduate curriculum. At UF, polar marine activities will be incorporated into a Florida Museum of Natural History open house.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.