Unlocking a safe operating space for Antarctica and the Southern Ocean

This destination will support the EU Commission priority ‘Sustaining our quality of life: food security, water and nature’.

This destination is expected to foster mitigation and adaptation to climate change on land, in the ocean and water, and therefore contribute to Cluster 6 in support of the ambition for Europe to become the first climate-neutral and climate-resilient continent by 2050.

The destination supports the evidence-base for the implementation of the European Green Deal and its climate and biodiversity objectives included in the European Climate Law, the Nature Restoration Regulation, the European Ocean Pact, the Arctic policy, the amended Regulation on land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF), the Regulation on Carbon Farming and Carbon Removals.

The destination also fosters the development and deployment of innovative solutions and approaches to strengthen Europe’s water security to deliver on the European Water Resilience Strategy, support the implementation of EU water legislation and contribute to the European Climate Adaptation Plan. The destination has complementarities with Cluster 5, climate science and the European Missions on Adaptation to Climate Change and Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030.

R&I actions under this destination will encourage international cooperation and help achieve international commitments concerning land, water, and ocean for climate action under the Paris Agreement, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), the Treaty on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement) and the Antarctic Treaty. Strengthening the ocean-climate-biodiversity-cryosphere nexus is a priority for the EU, as well as safeguarding the integrity and resilience of the ocean and polar regions as vulnerable parts of the Earth System. R&I will support and close key knowledge gaps through research that contributes substantially to the implementation of key international treaties and the work of various international bodies, assessments, and other initiatives.

The Destination supports unlocking the unique assets for research and innovation of the EU outermost regions, in line with the EU strategy for outermost regions ^[1].

Expected Impact: Proposals for topics under this destination should set out a credible pathway contributing to “Fostering mitigation of and adaptation to climate change in areas and sectors covered by Cluster 6”, and more specifically to one or more of the following expected impacts:

• Strengthened knowledge and understanding and reduced uncertainty about the future of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean in the short, medium, and long term, and its impacts on the Global Ocean and the Earth System are available and used, alongside identified commensurate management responses to prevent the Southern Ocean and the Antarctic cryosphere from reaching a point of no return, including enabling protecting, restoring and sustainably managing marine and coastal ecosystems and preventing pollution.
• Effective policy mixes and multi-level governance capable of anticipating a changing Arctic and enabling a just and sustainable transition for all, engaging society at large and balancing economic, social and environmental goals, thanks to improved evidence-based knowledge, tools and science-society-policy interfaces.
• Carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions from land and water activities (inland, marine and coastal) – including primary production – and infrastructures are minimised in rural, urban, and coastal areas while the monitoring, reporting and verification of the emissions is improved.
• Medium- and long-term adaptation and resilience of water infrastructure, agriculture and forestry to challenges related to climate change is further addressed with regard to scientific knowledge, public policy and economic practices.

[1] COM(2022) Putting people first, securing sustainable and inclusive growth, unlocking the potential of the EU’s outermost regions.

Expected Outcome:

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• improved multidisciplinary scientific understanding of the functioning of the Southern Ocean and the Antarctic cryosphere and associated ecosystem dynamics, in the near term (∼2030), mid-term (2050–2060) and long-term (after ∼2060), including their mutual interaction with, impact on and vulnerability to, current and future changes in the other components of the regional and global climate systems;
• important contributions made to key ocean, cryosphere, climate and biodiversity monitoring indicators that support international, regional and global assessments. Fostered development of a regional approach to polar ocean, climate and biodiversity observations, monitoring and reporting;
• informed policies for environmental conservation and climate resilience and enabled evidence-based regional, European, and global decision–making on polar ocean governance; sustained European leadership in ocean–climate–biodiversity-cryosphere science; significant contributions made to global scientific assessments (e.g. IPCC, IPBES and WOA), as well as to the UN Decades of Action of Ocean (2021-2030) and Cryospheric (2025-2034) Sciences, the Antarctica InSync programme (2027 and 2030), the International Polar Year (2032-2033), UN SDGs 13 and 14, and the European polar science coordination efforts.

Scope:

Proposals should:

• resolve uncertainties, improve projections and quantifications of the future of the region, looking at changes in the near-, mid- and long-term (irreversible, abrupt and committed changes), their likelihood, timing, rate, amplitude, and impacts on the Earth’s System (decadal to millennial climate projections, global sea level, ocean circulation, global carbon budget);
• advance understanding of the complex interactions and feedbacks between the ocean, the atmosphere, sea ice, ice shelves, and land ice dynamics, considering multiple scales and processes simultaneously, with focus on the Antarctic continental shelves where conditions are or will change rapidly and on regions for bottom water formation;
• advance the knowledge of Southern Ocean dynamics and sea ice dynamics in the near-, mid- and long-term. Better understand the distribution, underlying mechanisms and impacts of changes in the Southern Ocean and sea ice to reduce uncertainties in projected future changes of large-scale ocean circulation and transport, including abrupt, irreversible change/tipping elements and thresholds, collapse of the overturning circulations, regional and global climate and weather systems. This should include extreme events and mid-latitude weather; fluxes between the ice sheet and the ocean; the future dynamics of oceanic carbon pools;
• explore the vulnerability of Southern Ocean ecosystems, including the impacts of climate change, pollution and other anthropogenic activities on marine biodiversity and ecosystem dynamics changes in the near (∼2030), mid (2050–2060) and long-term (after ∼2060). This includes improved control variables for the diversity of all life forms incorporating also the microbiome and functions (functional diversity), as well as the biocomplexity suitable for measuring biosphere integrity in different facets. Proposals should also contribute to the development or strengthening of long-term, continuous monitoring systems for Southern Ocean biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, in synergy with existing observation infrastructures;
• develop mechanisms to distinguish human-induced environmental changes from natural ones and develop strategies to protect the fragile environment of the Southern Ocean from human activities and climate change, as well as comprehensively establish the efficacy of Southern Ocean conservation measures for preserving evolutionary potential and those properties that best anticipate change;
• further improve key ocean, cryosphere, climate and biodiversity monitoring indicators that support international, regional and global assessments and foster the development of a regional approach to polar ocean and climate observations, monitoring and reporting, and further the representation of multi-scale interactions in Earth System Models (ESMs) and regional coupled atmosphere–ocean–sea ice–land models representing key physical, biogeochemical, and biological processes in the polar ocean regions;
• advance capabilities to provide evidence, tractable proposals and recommendations for commensurate policy and protection, restoration and long-term sustainable management responses to prevent the Southern Ocean and its ecosystems and cryosphere from reaching a point of no return.

The actions should contribute to the evolution of the EU Digital Twin of the Ocean and Destination Earth, and interface with the Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS). All in-situ data collected through actions funded from this topic should follow INSPIRE principles and be available through open access repositories supported by the European Commission (Copernicus, and EMODnet). Concrete efforts should be made to ensure that the data produced in the context of the funded projects is FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable). Proposals are encouraged to consider, where relevant, the data, expertise and services offered by European research infrastructures^[1], as well as related projects in the environment domain, such as POLARIN^[2]. International cooperation is strongly encouraged, especially with All-Atlantic Ocean Research and Innovation Alliance (AAORIA) partner countries^[3]. This topic is part of a coordination initiative between ESA and the European Commission on Earth System Science and should towards this end include sufficient means and resources for effective coordination, with relevant ESA Polar Science Cluster projects, including utilising novel satellite Earth Observation datasets and joint research actions. Furthermore, this topic is supporting the European polar science coordination efforts, including synergies with and support to the objectives and work plan of the European Polar Coordination Office (EPCO).

[1] The catalogue of European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) research infrastructures portfolio can be browsed from ESFRI website https://ri-portfolio.esfri.eu/

[2] POLARIN – Polar Research Infrastructure Network.

[3] Home - All Atlantic Ocean Research and Innovation Alliance