Kick-off meeting EU2020 COMFORT Project

Oct 9, 2019

Scientists taking a sample with a CTD probe attached to a corona water sampler. Data obtained in this way will also help the newly launched project to determine the key role of the subpolar North Atlantic in more detail. Photo: MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen; V. Diekamp

What are our safe operating spaces for the ocean? This is the starting question for the new EU Horizon 2020 project COMFORT. The official kick-off meeting takes place from 9 to 11 October in Bergen, Norway. With over eight Million Euro budget and 32 participating partner institutes in nine European countries, Canada, India and South Africa, the project started on 1 September 2019. The University of Bremen and the MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Science are one of the six German partners.

Within the next four years the COMFORT project sets out to quantify coupled cycles of carbon, oxygen and nutrients for determining and achieving safe operating spaces in the ocean – and especially with respect to global ecosystem tipping points in the oceans.

The researchers’ aim is to detect and minimize manmade climate change in the oceans. The project focuses on global ecosystems tipping points. Such tipping points are critical points where anthropogenic forces become significant enough to cause a large ecosystem change.

The University of Bremen and the MARUM will contribute their expertise to the measurement and analysis of anthropogenic trace and noble gases in the Atlantic Ocean. In this project, the key role of the subpolar North Atlantic will be examined in detail, especially with regard to hydrographic properties, anthropogenic carbon and the advection of melt water from the Greenland ice sheet.

The results will provide guardrails for political and logistical decisions on combatting and avoiding anthropogenic climate change and contribute to IPCC reports in future

More information about the project on its website: www.comfort-project.eu

And on the EU portal: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/223248/factsheet/en

Comfort Director Christoph Heinze and deputy Director Thorsten Blenckner welcomed 85 participants to the kick-off meeting in Bergen today. For three days they will discuss all parts of the project Photo: Gudrun Sylte, Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research

The nine planetary boundaries for safe operating spaces developed at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, 2009.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 820989. The work reflects only the author’s/authors’ view; the European Commission and their executive agency are not responsible for any use that may be made of the information the work contains.