BIOlogical productivity changes and their leverage on the Carbon cycle during past Deglaciations
Funding: ANR-PCR2022 (2023–2026)
Project leader: S. Duchamp-Alphonse (GEOPS)
Co-leaders of the “Workpackages”: A. Landais and N. Boutte (LSCE), J. Etourneau and M. Sanchez-Goni (EPOC), Roberto Grilli (IGE), and A. Séjourné (GEOPS)
In total, the project brings together 31 researchers from 4 French universities (GEOPS, LSCE, IGE, EPOC) and 6 external partners (LOG, ESE/AgroParitech, LMD/ENS Paris, UNIL, PICE, CARTEL).
The study of Quaternary glacial-interglacial transitions, also known as Terminations, is essential for addressing the challenges posed by current climate change, as they are associated with increases of 50–100 ppm in atmospheric CO2 concentration (pCO2) over a period of a few thousand years. Quantitatively interpreting these changes in pCO2 remains difficult because the carbon stocks and fluxes associated with the main reservoirs of the climate system are poorly understood. This is particularly the case for those involving biological productivity, despite its role at the interface between the atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere. The aim of BIOCOD is to quantify changes in biological productivity and their impacts on variations in pCO2 during key terminations over the last 800,000 years through a multi-method analysis of sediment and ice cores, and through the use of climate models.