Iberian Margin Paleoclimate
2022-10-11 (IPMA)
On the 13th of October, the expedition "Iberian Margin Paleoclimate" departs from Lisbon aboard the drilling vessel Joides Resolution, which takes place within the scope of the "International Program for the Discovery of the Ocean - IODP, and which will take place until the 11th of December 2022.
The expedition is led by David Hodell from Cambridge University (UK) and Fátima Abrantes, IPMA principal investigator with aggregation, and CCMAR collaborator. The objective of the expedition is to reconstruct the climate of the last 3 million years, paying particular attention to the hottest periods and with atmospheric levels of CO2 similar to the values expected for 2030. These studies will be an important source of new data that will allow to estimate more needs potential ocean circulation and climate changes in the near future.
In the words of Fátima Abrantes "it is wonderful to have this opportunity to - before retiring - fulfill a dream that began in the early years of my career. I believe that this expedition will be one of the most important for future paleoclimate studies".
The choice of the Iberian margin is due to the fact that this is a unique zone, in which the sediments under the ocean floor reliably record the climatic conditions observed in the polar ices of Greenland and Antarctica, thus allowing inter-hemispheric comparisons in a single location. On the other hand, the high rate of sedimentation allows a temporal resolution in the order of hundreds of years, while the proximity to the coast helps to obtain information about the climate on the continent. The bathymetric variability of the Príncipes de Avis mountains, the location to be sampled, also facilitates the study of the evolution of the different water masses that occupy the interior of the North Atlantic.
A multidisciplinary team of 26 researchers from ten countries (China, Japan, Australia, India, USA, Germany, Spain, France, Portugal, UK) and IODP technicians participate in the expedition, who work in 12-hour shifts to simultaneously analyze several parameters of the sediments that are being collected.
This program allows contact with the public through connections to the ship during the expedition (schools, organized groups, the media or others), or even visits by researchers to schools. For more information you should contact: thejoidesresolution@gmail.com
Imagens associadas
Azores Extended Forecast Bulletin
Lisbon arrival of Joides Resolution vessel (credits: Marta Rufino)
