Ocean Regulation of Climate by Heat and Carbon Sequestration and Transports (ORCHESTRA)

气候变化是人类和地球上生命面临的最紧迫的问题之一。需要更好地预测未来的气候变化，以便能够采取措施减少其影响并应对其影响。然而，改进这些预测需要更好地了解全球气候系统如何运作，而这方面的知识目前是不完整的。一个关键的空白涉及对海洋吸收热量和碳的理解。由于全球变暖，地球系统中超过90%的额外热量进入了海洋，自20世纪70年代以来，海洋上层和深海的热量都明显增加了。此外，全球海洋是气候系统中最大的碳储存库，吸收了自工业革命以来产生的近三分之一的额外碳排放。这些过程有力地减缓了大气中的气候变化，如果没有这些过程，气候变化会急剧加剧。南大洋- -环绕南极洲的广阔海洋- -在这方面极为重要。由于其循环的性质、物理和化学性质以及与全球其他地区的联系，它占海洋碳吸收的一半左右，占海洋热量吸收的四分之三左右。然而，由于其偏远和恶劣的环境，狂风暴雨的海面，厚重的海冰，以及冬季长时间的黑暗，南大洋也是世界上测量最少、了解最少的海洋。这种缺乏理解的后果之一是，在许多用于预测未来气候的模式中，对南大洋的描述不符合目的。我们的项目，海洋通过热量和碳封存和运输调节气候（ORCHESTRA），代表了英国许多主要环境研究机构的联系，他们将与国内和国际合作伙伴一起解决这些问题。我们建议将数据收集、新颖的分析和计算机模拟相结合，从根本上提高我们测量、理解和预测南大洋环流及其在全球气候中的作用的能力。数据收集将包括在南大洋大西洋部分进行的主要船只探险，以确定所有不同海洋层（近表层、中层、深海）的盆地尺度的热量和碳输送。它将包括使用新技术和无人驾驶车辆来收集比船只所能提供的更长的时间和更大的区域的数据，并使用研究飞机飞行来确定在所有不同的海冰条件下大气和海洋之间的热量和碳的重要气候转移。根据这些实地活动将产生的新认识，将提出并测试对海洋模型的改进，并将这些改进交付给气候建模人员，以便能够做出更好的未来预测。很明显，迫切需要这些发展——改进气候预测所带来的好处怎么强调都不过分，因为应对气候变化的更有效战略变得可行，更好的规划假设也使工业、商业和其他部门成为可能。据最近估计，南大洋碳汇的价值高达数万亿美元，但未来如何变化的不确定性高达数十亿美元：因此，缩小这种不确定性是一项重要的经济优先事项，也是一项科学和社会优先事项。

Climate change is one of the most urgent issues facing humanity and life on Earth. Better predictions of future climate change are needed, so that measures to reduce its impact and cope with its effects can be put in place. However, improving these predictions requires better knowledge of how the global climate system functions, and this knowledge is currently incomplete. A critical gap concerns understanding of the uptake of heat and carbon by the oceans. Over 90% of the extra heat now present in the Earth System because of global warming has entered the ocean, with strong increases in both the upper and deep ocean apparent since the 1970s. Further, the global ocean is the largest reservoir of carbon in the climate system, and has absorbed nearly one-third of the extra carbon emissions produced since the industrial revolution. Climate change in the atmosphere is strongly moderated by these processes, and would be dramatically greater without them.The Southern Ocean - the vast ocean that encircles Antarctica - is critically important in this regard. Because of the nature of its circulation, its physical and chemical properties, and its connections with the rest of the globe, it accounts for around half of the oceanic uptake of carbon, and around three-quarters of the heat uptake. However, because of its remoteness and hostile environment, with stormy seas, heavy sea ice in places, and long periods of darkness in winter, the Southern Ocean is also the least-measured and least-understood ocean in the world. One consequence of this lack of understanding is that the representations of the Southern Ocean in many of the models used to create future climate projections are not fit for purpose.Our project, Ocean Regulation of Climate by Heat and Carbon Sequestration and Transports (ORCHESTRA), represents a linking together of many of the major environmental research institutes in the UK, who will work with national and international partners to address these issues. We propose a combination of data collection, novel analyses and computer simulations to radically improve our ability to measure, understand and predict the circulation and role in global climate of the Southern Ocean. Data collection will include major ship-based expeditions across the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean to determine the basin-scale transports of heat and carbon in all the different ocean layers (near-surface, intermediate, abyssal). It will include the use of novel technology and unmanned vehicles to collect data over much longer periods and much greater areas than ships alone could allow, and flights with research aircraft to determine climatically-important transfers of heat and carbon between the atmosphere and ocean in all different conditions of sea ice. Informed by the new understanding that these field campaigns will produce, improvements to ocean models will be proposed and tested, and the improvements delivered to climate modellers so that better future projections can be produced.It is clear that these developments are required urgently - the benefits to be gained by improving climate prediction are difficult to overstate, with more effective strategies for dealing with climate change becoming feasible, and better planning assumptions made possible for industry, commerce and other sectors. The value of the Southern Ocean carbon sink was recently estimated to be in the trillions of dollars, but with uncertainty in the billions concerning how it will change in future: narrowing this uncertainty is thus a strong economic priority, as well as a scientific and societal one.