Establishing long-term baselines of marine variability in the northwest European shelf seas. (Ref:4252)

项目背景：海洋环境正经历着来自人为气候变化、社会影响和开发（如渔业和海上基础设施项目）的前所未有的压力。评估这些影响的程度需要在影响发生之前为自然变化状态建立基线。鉴于仪器海洋观测通常仅跨越过去几十年至20世纪中叶，它们很可能受到人为因素的严重影响，不能提供具有代表性的海洋自然变率基线。该项目旨在利用基于生长环模式和长寿的海洋双壳类软体动物的地球化学组成的超高分辨率过去海洋变化记录的最新进展（硬化年代学），即树木年代学。这些年代记录提供了过去海洋变异性的忠实记录，并为解决有关现代和过去海洋变异性本质的基本问题提供了巨大的潜力。项目目标和方法：该项目旨在生成和利用超高分辨率环境记录的尖端网络，以确定过去几个世纪以来海洋变化的状态。这些记录将用于解决与现代海洋变率性质相关的关键问题，包括：在过去几个世纪的背景下，观察到的海洋生态/物理变率的现代趋势是否前所未有？海水表面温度升高对远洋和底栖生态系统的影响有多大？观察到的北大西洋环流模式的变化是否影响了欧洲大陆架西北部的海洋生态系统？为了回答这些问题，地球上最长寿的动物（海蛤）的生长环和壳的地球化学成分将被用来建立环境重建，从过去几十年到几个世纪，从欧洲西北部大陆架海域的关键地点。这些记录将根据海洋观测（例如海面温度和连续浮游生物记录数据集）使用尖端的统计建模技术进行校准，以产生过去海洋变化的气候场重建。将询问耦合观测和基于代理的数据集，以提供对新定义的长期背景下现代海洋变率性质的概率理解。项目合作伙伴：该学生将在埃克塞特大学地理与环境科学中心的年代学和硬化学研究小组工作。地球化学分析将在地球与环境科学学院（卡迪夫大学）的稳定同位素实验室和凯尔特实验室进行。该项目与普利茅斯海洋实验室和海洋生物协会合作，他们在现代海洋监测和生态数据分析方面提供领先的专业知识。MBA和PML将提供必要的设施，以协助整个项目的培训和支持。培训：将提供所有专门的年代和地球化学显微采样/分析培训。ERC资助的sechange项目将提供额外的培训和实地工作机会。作为西海峡天文台监测方案的一部分，将有机会在船上进行实地工作

Project Background:Marine environments are experiencing unprecedented pressure from anthropogenic climate change, societal impacts, and exploitation (e.g. fishing and offshore infrastructure projects). Evaluating the magnitude of these impacts requires establishing a baseline for the natural state of variability prior to the impact. Given instrumental marine observations typically only span the past few decades to the mid-20th century they are likely heavily influenced by anthropogenic factors and do not provide a representative baseline of natural marine variability. This project seeks to capitalise on recent advances in the development of ultra-high resolution records of past marine variability based on growth ring patterns and the geochemical composition of long-lived marine bivalve molluscs (sclerochronologies), synonymous to dendrochronology. These sclerochronological records provide faithful records of past marine variability and provide significant potential for addressing fundamental questions about the nature of modern and past marine variability. Project aims and methods:This project seeks to generate and exploit a cutting edge network of ultra-high-resolution environmental records to determine the state of past marine variability over past centuries. These records will be used to address key questions associated with the nature of modern marine variability including: Are observed modern trends in ecological/physical marine variability unprecedented in the context of past centuries? To what extent are warming sea surface temperatures impacting pelagic and benthic ecosystems? Are observed changes in North Atlantic Ocean circulation patterns impacting NW European shelf sea ecosystems? To answer these questions, growth rings and the geochemical composition of the shells of the longest-lived animals on Earth (marine clams) will be employed to establish environmental reconstructions that span past decades to centuries from key locations across the NW European shelf seas. These records will be calibrated against marine observations (e.g. sea surface temperature, and the Continuous Plankton Recorder dataset) using cutting edge statistical modelling techniques to generate climate field reconstructions of past marine variability. The coupled observation and proxy based datasets will be interrogated to provide a probabilistic understanding of the nature of modern marine variability set against the newly defined long-term context.Project Partners:The student will be based within the Sclerochronology and Scleroclimatology Research Group at the Centre for Geography and Environmental Science (university of Exeter). Geochemical analyses will be conducted in the Stable Isotope Laboratory and Celtic Lab within the School of Earth and Environmental Science (Cardiff University). The project is partnering with Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the Marine Biological Association who are providing leading expertise in modern marine monitoring and ecological data analysis. The MBA and PML will provide the necessary facilities to assist this training and support throughout the project.Training:Training will be provided on all specialised sclerochronological and geochemical microsampling/analysis. The ERC funded SEACHANGE project will provide additional training and field work opportunities. Opportunities will be available for ship based field work as part of the Western Channel Observatory monitoring programme