Ocean-ICU Improving Carbon Understanding

海洋在全球C循环中起着至关重要的作用，吸收了我们排放到大气中的约25%的二氧化碳，从而减缓了气候变化的速度。这个碳汇的未来轨迹将影响我们为将大气二氧化碳浓度稳定在450ppm而需要对人类过程进行的调整的时间和强度。我们测量和模拟这个碳汇的能力是有限的（测量和模拟的碳吸收之间存在显著差异），目前的前沿研究领域是一套与所谓的生物碳泵内更高营养水平行为相关的生物过程。高等生物的参与表明，人类活动（捕鱼、能源和矿物开采）有能力影响海洋碳汇，但我们缺乏将人类压力与海洋碳储存直接定量联系起来的能力。海洋ICU将测量这些关键过程并评估其总体意义，将那些重要的过程转化为模型，为IPCC进程提供信息，从而有助于解决观测到的海洋碳汇估算模式数据不匹配的问题。我们将直接向缔约方会议传达这一信息，支持《联合国气候变化框架公约》将海洋碳汇纳入全球盘点的雄心。我们将利用我们在生物系统周围获得的基本知识来评估人类干预海洋改变碳循环的能力，并生产管理工具，使资源开采和碳储存之间的紧张关系得到解决。这一部分将涉及与最终用户和利益相关者的广泛对话，并形成一个决策支持工具，使我们能够就如何在50年后变化的海洋中管理渔业和资源开采提出问题，从而对我们实现绿色协议的能力做出重大贡献。

The Ocean plays a crucial role in the global C cycle, taking up approximately 25% of the CO2 we emit to the atmosphere, and thus slowing the rate of climate change. The future trajectory of this sink will affect the timing and intensity of the modifications to human processes that we need to undertake in order to stabilise atmospheric CO2 at 450ppm. Our ability to measure and model this sink is limited (evidenced by significant discrepancies between measured and modelled C uptake) with the current frontier area of research being a suite of biological processes related to higher trophic level behaviour within the so called biological C pump. This involvement of higher organisms suggests that human activities (fishing, energy and mineral extraction) has the capacity to affect the ocean C sink however we lack the ability to quantitatively link direct human pressures and ocean C storage. Ocean ICU will measure these key processes and evaluate their overall significance, transferring those that are important into models that inform the IPCC process and in this way contribute to resolving the observed model data mismatch of Ocean C sink estimates. We will take this message directly to the COP in support of the ambition the UNFCCC has to include the ocean C sink in the global stocktake. We will use the fundamental knowledge we acquire around biological systems to evaluate the ability of human interventions in the ocean to alter the carbon cycle and produce management tools that allow the tension between resource extraction and C storage to be addressed. This component will involve extensive dialogue with end users and stakeholders and lead to a Decision Support Tool that will constitute a major contribution to our ability to deliver the Green Deal by allowing us to ask questions around how to manage fisheries and resource extraction in a changed ocean in 50 years time.