SEAO2-CDR is an ambitious multidisciplinary project that unites expert scientific, economic, legal, political, social and ethical researchers with industry leaders and regulators to establish and assess the evaluation pathways and methodologies required for sustainable and effective operationalisation of Ocean-based Carbon Dioxide Removal (OCDR). The implementation of appropriate CDR strategies is regarded as an essential component of most Net Zero emission pathways, yet the mechanisms and processes needed to facilitate their deployment remain largely unexplored. Notably OCDR approaches have generally received less attention than terrestrial CDR technologies despite offering equivalent, or greater, sequestration potential. SEAO2-CDR addresses critical gaps in our techno economic understanding of archetypal OCDR approaches in order to define the operational spaces in which they are environmentally and economically viable, and will establish robust Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) strategies for different approaches using state-of-the-art Earth System Models (ESMs) and autonomous sensor technologies. Stakeholder-oriented governance frameworks will be developed that define the multi-dimensional interaction points through which responsible and effective governance of OCDR could be implemented and support the business development and investment needed to scale up OCDR. Finally, the parameterisation of ecological synergies and system-level trade-offs will enable OCDR to be incorporated into Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) that identify which techniques are best positioned to support the transition to a climate-neutral and resilient society. Together these activities will enable SEAO2-CDR to advance the implementation potential of OCDR by supporting the characterisation and development of environmentally safe, socially acceptable, and economically viable approaches that can help realise global climate policies.

Among the most fatal, societal risks of the changing climate is the crossing of climate tipping points, leading to an abrupt and potentially irreversible climate change. Observations from paleoclimate records, established theory, and models suggest that changes in North Atlantic ocean circulation, driven by freshwater discharges from melting glaciers and sea ice, may trigger this risk. Already, recent research has shown that excess freshwater in the North Atlantic is linked to stormier weather in the high northern latitudes in winter and drier, warmer European summers. The ice melt and the associated freshwater fluxes are, in turn, highly sensitive to the distribution of heat by the ocean and atmospheric circulations of the Arctic and North Atlantic. Thus, predicting changes in the distribution of heat and freshwater in the Arctic and the North Atlantic requires a detailed understanding of the feedbacks between the ice, the ocean, and the atmosphere. Unfortunately, many current climate models do not adequately capture these feedbacks and may hence, potentially, underestimate the risk of rapid climate change. Considering the rate at which the Arctic is currently warming and losing ice, there is an urgent need to assess the resulting ocean changes in the North Atlantic and their large-scale climatic consequences. DIMSUM approaches the gap in our knowledge around ice-ocean-atmosphere feedbacks in the Arctic and North Atlantic region with a unique combination of observations, new model products, and tools. Taking advantage of the long-term field observations from the OSNAP and RAPID mooring arrays across the North Atlantic, high resolution simulations produced within the NC CANARI project and the state-of-the-art Arctic Subpolar gyre sTate Estimate (ASTE), we will first characterise heat and freshwater changes in the Arctic and North Atlantic regions. We will further use the special adjoint capability of the ASTE model to carry out sensitivity and attributions studies. These studies will help us assess mechanisms that drive changes in the heat and freshwater distribution. In addition, we will evaluate climate feedbacks and impacts by applying statistical techniques to ASTE, remote sensing observations, atmospheric reanalysis data, and the new, large ensemble, high resolution CANARI simulations. By finally integrating the results into a new, conceptual model analysis, we will provide improved threshold estimates for climate tipping points in the North Atlantic sector.

The open ocean ecosystems which dominate the surface of our planet are all dependent on the generation of new organic matter by single celled organisms which are collectively termed phytoplankton. These organisms use light, nutrients and carbon dioxide to grow through a process termed primary production. In addition to forming the base of the marine food web, the collective primary production by these organisms is ultimately responsible for ocean biology keeping atmospheric carbon dioxide levels around 30-40% lower than they would otherwise be, thus exerting a significant impact on global climate. Understanding how primary production may vary in the future is thus important for predicting the ongoing response of both ocean ecosystems and carbon cycling to climate change. The abundance and activity of phytoplankton in the upper ocean is always a balance between growth rates (determined by the availability of resources) and loss rates including through grazing by organisms collectively termed zooplankton and mortality due to viruses and direct sinking. However, the factors determining both growth and loss dynamically vary both across the different regions of the ocean and throughout the annual cycle in complex and interacting ways. We currently try and capture the knowledge necessary to predict future changes in primary production using numerical models of these interacting processes. However, our current state-of-the-art models differ substantially in their predictions of future change due to the differing ways they represent a variety of these key processes. Focusing on an important region of the ocean for biological carbon storage, the mid-high latitude North Atlantic, our proposal aims to make exciting new year-round observations of primary production and the controlling factors using a combination of satellite, ship-based and novel robotic platforms. We will augment these observations with detailed experimental work undertaken at sea, alongside targeted numerical modelling, in order to generate an improved understanding of the balance between controls on growth and loss and, crucially, establish how this varies over the dynamic seasonal cycle. Data from our observations and experiments will allow us to establish key drivers of the magnitude and seasonal changes in primary production and link these to the overall controls on the efficiency of ocean carbon storage across a broad region of the North Atlantic Ocean. In addition to providing new understanding, our research will generate improved data sets of rates of growth and loss, providing more rigorous constraints for numerical models and hence pointing the way towards more confident predictions of future primary production and carbon cycle responses to climate change.

Blue-Cloud 2026 builds upon the pilot Blue-Cloud project which established a pilot cyber platform, providing researchers access to multidisciplinary datasets from observations, analytical services, and computing facilities essential for blue science. Core services delivered are the federated Data Discovery & Access Service (DD&AS), the Virtual Research Environment (VRE) and Virtual Labs. Blue-Cloud 2026 aims at a further evolution of its pilot ecosystem into a Federated European Ecosystem to deliver FAIR & Open data, analytical services, instrumental for deepening research of oceans, EU seas, coastal & inland waters. It develops a thematic marine extension to EOSC for open web-based science, & serves needs of the EU Blue Economy, Marine Environment and Marine Knowledge agendas. Blue-Cloud 2026 in 42 months covers activities at a growing number of federated environmental RIs to improve & optimise services for uptake of new data sets from a multitude of data originators and for discovery and access to their structured data collections. The advanced ecosystem will provide a core data service for the Digital Twin of the Ocean (DTO), mobilising and making available major additional data resources as validated and harmonised in-situ data by means of Data Lakes. The modular architecture of the VRE is scalable & sustainable, fit for connecting additional e-infrastructures, integrating more blue analytical services, configuring more Virtual Labs, and targeting broader (groups of) users. Blue-Cloud 2026’s overall Objective is to expand the federated approach of Blue-Cloud, involving more aquatic data stakeholders, and interacting with European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) developments, in support of the EU Green Deal, UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), EU Destination Earth, and the EU Mission Starfish on healthy oceans, seas, coastal and inland waters, ultimately to provide a core data service for the European Digital Twin of the Ocean. Blue-Cloud 2026 is co-ordinated by the same organisations behind the pilot Blue-Cloud project (Trust-IT & MARIS), supported by a core team of existing and new Blue-Cloud partners; overall it mobilises a solid, multidisciplinary, & committed team of 40 partners from 13 European countries. Blue-Cloud 2026 builds upon the pilot Blue-Cloud project which established a pilot cyber platform, providing researchers access to multidisciplinary datasets from observations, analytical services, and computing facilities essential for blue science. Core services delivered are the federated Data Discovery & Access Service (DD&AS), the Virtual Research Environment (VRE) and Virtual Labs. Blue-Cloud 2026 aims at a further evolution of its pilot ecosystem into a Federated European Ecosystem to deliver FAIR & Open data, analytical services, instrumental for deepening research of oceans, EU seas, coastal & inland waters. It develops a thematic marine extension to EOSC for open web-based science, & serves needs of the EU Blue Economy, Marine Environment and Marine Knowledge agendas. Blue-Cloud 2026 in 42 months covers activities at a growing number of federated environmental RIs to improve & optimise services for uptake of new data sets from a multitude of data originators and for discovery and access to their structured data collections. The advanced ecosystem will provide a core data service for the Digital Twin of the Ocean (DTO), mobilising and making available major additional data resources as validated and harmonised in-situ data by means of Data Lakes. The modular architecture of the VRE is scalable & sustainable, fit for connecting additional e-infrastructures, integrating more blue analytical services, configuring more Virtual Labs, and targeting broader (groups of) users. Blue-Cloud 2026’s overall Objective is to expand the federated approach of Blue-Cloud, involving more aquatic data stakeholders, and interacting with European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) developments, in support of the EU Green Deal, UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), EU Destination Earth, and the EU Mission Starfish on healthy oceans, seas, coastal and inland waters, ultimately to provide a core data service for the European Digital Twin of the Ocean. Blue-Cloud 2026 is co-ordinated by the same organisations behind the pilot Blue-Cloud project (Trust-IT & MARIS), supported by a core team of existing and new Blue-Cloud partners; overall it mobilises a solid, multidisciplinary, & committed team of 40 partners from 13 European countries. Blue-Cloud 2026 builds upon the pilot Blue-Cloud project which established a pilot cyber platform, providing researchers access to multidisciplinary datasets from observations, analytical services, and computing facilities essential for blue science. Core services delivered are the federated Data Discovery & Access Service (DD&AS), the Virtual Research Environment (VRE) and Virtual Labs. Blue-Cloud 2026 aims at a further evolution of its pilot ecosystem into a Federated European Ecosystem to deliver FAIR & Open data, analytical services, instrumental for deepening research of oceans, EU seas, coastal & inland waters. It develops a thematic marine extension to EOSC for open web-based science, & serves needs of the EU Blue Economy, Marine Environment and Marine Knowledge agendas. Blue-Cloud 2026 in 42 months covers activities at a growing number of federated environmental RIs to improve & optimise services for uptake of new data sets from a multitude of data originators and for discovery and access to their structured data collections. The advanced ecosystem will provide a core data service for the Digital Twin of the Ocean (DTO), mobilising and making available major additional data resources as validated and harmonised in-situ data by means of Data Lakes. The modular architecture of the VRE is scalable & sustainable, fit for connecting additional e-infrastructures, integrating more blue analytical services, configuring more Virtual Labs, and targeting broader (groups of) users. Blue-Cloud 2026’s overall Objective is to expand the federated approach of Blue-Cloud, involving more aquatic data stakeholders, and interacting with European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) developments, in support of the EU Green Deal, UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), EU Destination Earth, and the EU Mission Starfish on healthy oceans, seas, coastal and inland waters, ultimately to provide a core data service for the European Digital Twin of the Ocean. Blue-Cloud 2026 is co-ordinated by the same organisations behind the pilot Blue-Cloud project (Trust-IT & MARIS), supported by a core team of existing and new Blue-Cloud partners; overall it mobilises a solid, multidisciplinary, & committed team of 40 partners from 13 European countries.

Global mean sea level is rising at around 3.5 mm per year due to the combined effects of melting land ice and ocean thermal expansion. Regionally however, sea level is also strongly influenced by changes in the strength and the pathways of large-scale ocean currents, and the long-term trend is often masked by large-amplitude changes over several years. Quantifying and predicting regional patterns is crucial for coastal communities where the magnitude and frequency of extreme sea level events are of immediate societal relevance. At the U.S. East Coast, sea level rise and variability patterns have been strongly linked to the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). However, on the NW European shelf, comparatively little is known about the impact of AMOC on sea level change, variability, and extremes. A key barrier to achieving this is understanding the ocean dynamics over the continental slope - the interface between the deep ocean and the shallow continental shelf. Currents directed from the deep ocean towards the slope might not continue onto the shelf and might instead feed into the rapid along-slope boundary current which encircles the NW European shelf. Understanding the relative importance of each of these processes, and how they change over time, is key to understanding how sea level will change at the coast. Large scale ocean currents are predicted to change with the warming climate, with the AMOC projected to weaken dramatically in the next 30 years. However, the climate models which yield these predictions lack the fine-scale resolution required to capture the effect of these changes on shelf sea level at a regional scale, in particular the role of narrow boundary currents in modulating the influence of the deep ocean circulation at the coast. It is therefore critical that boundary current dynamics are fully understood if the effect of changing ocean currents on coastal sea level is to be effectively predicted. In this project, we will directly measure the flow directed from the open ocean towards the NW European shelf, as well as measuring the boundary current strength and shelf sea level. This will allow us to establish the role that boundary dynamics play in modulating the effect of ocean circulation of shelf sea level. We will also use experimental simulations of the region to quantify the physical processes at play and understand how these change over longer time scales. Finally, we will run a high-resolution future Atlantic Ocean simulation to study how these processes will evolve as the AMOC weakens during the next three decades, and evaluate the impacts on coastal sea level change, variability, and extremes.