Mechanistically understanding biomineralisation and ancient ocean chemistry changes to facilitate robust climate model validation

从机械角度理解生物矿化和古代海洋化学变化，以促进稳健的气候模型验证

• 批准号: EP/Y034252/1
• 负责人: David Evans
• 金额: $ 222.77万
• 依托单位: University of Southampton
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FY034252%2F1
• 关键词: Mechanistically; understanding; biomineralisation; ancient; ocean

The study of warm intervals in Earth's geologic past with naturally higher-than-modern atmospheric CO2 is of crucial societal importance because this information provides: i) a way of determining how much temperature is likely to rise as we burn fossil fuels, and ii) an empirical means of assessing the quality of state-of-the-art climate models. Most past climate information comes from 'proxies', which relate small changes in the chemical composition of fossil materials to their environment of formation, of which the shells of the foraminifera (unicellular marine organisms) possibly represent the most widely used archive. Unfortunately, no proxy system is perfect, in that they are all responsive to more than one factor. For example, paleothermometers based on the geochemistry of foraminifera are sensitive to both the temperature and chemistry of the seawater they formed in, the latter of which has changed through time in a poorly understood way. In addition, there is no consensus view on even the basic mechanisms involved in the process by which foraminifera build their shell, such that we don't know when proxy reconstructions are likely to be biased. AMOEBA will directly tackle both issues by making extremely novel observations of living foraminifera to determine how they form their shell, and by generating the necessary records of past chemical change in the oceans. This will facilitate a step-change in the interpretationof quantitative proxy data, transforming the utility of such datasets. AMOEBA will apply this knowledge to a new Cenozoic data compilation, producing accurate estimates of Earth's temperature during key greenhouse intervals. Thus, by facilitating the next generation of model-data comparison, the ability of state-of-the-art climate models to capture key features of greenhouse warmth will be unambiguously assessed for the first time.

研究地球地质历史中自然高于现代大气CO2的温暖间隔具有至关重要的社会重要性，因为这些信息提供了：i）确定当我们燃烧化石燃料时温度可能上升多少的方法，以及ii）评估最先进气候模型质量的经验方法。大多数过去的气候信息来自“代理”，它将化石材料的化学成分的微小变化与其形成环境联系起来，其中有孔虫（单细胞海洋生物）的外壳可能是最广泛使用的档案。不幸的是，没有一个代理制度是完美的，因为它们都对不止一个因素作出反应。例如，基于有孔虫地球化学的古温度计对它们形成的海水的温度和化学性质都很敏感，后者随着时间的推移而变化，但人们对此知之甚少。此外，甚至连有孔虫建造外壳的过程中所涉及的基本机制都没有共识，因此我们不知道何时代理重建可能会有偏见。AMOEBA将通过对活有孔虫进行极其新颖的观察来直接解决这两个问题，以确定它们是如何形成外壳的，并通过生成海洋过去化学变化的必要记录。这将有助于逐步改变对定量代用数据的解释，改变这些数据集的效用。AMOEBA将把这一知识应用于新的新生代数据汇编，对关键温室间隔期间的地球温度进行准确估计。因此，通过促进下一代模型数据比较，将首次明确评估最先进的气候模型捕捉温室温暖关键特征的能力。