Carbon System research theme

Understanding climate
for the benefit of society

icon carbon climate

The processes that regulate the flows of carbon in the earth system on multiple timescales.

Research focus

How much of the human induced CO₂ emissions are taken up by the ocean?
What are the consequences of the oceanic CO₂ uptake in terms of ocean acidification?
What controls natural variations of the carbon cycle?
What do biogeochemical tracers tell us about water mass formation and ocean circulation?
What are the feedbacks between the climate system and biogeochemical processes in the ocean and on land?
How to include the marine sedimentary paleoclimate record in global ocean models?
How to include vegetation and soils in global climate models?

Keywords: carbon cycle, climate feedbacks, sustainability, glacial cycles, nutrients, oxygen.

Outlook

“The transformation to a low carbon society has to happen in the next ten years and insight into the carbon system is essential for this process”, says Are Olsen, leader of the Carbon System research theme.

“It is essential for defining the risks associated with the various possible emission pathways, for planning climate actions, and for evaluating their efficiency in reducing atmospheric CO₂.

Our central goal is to provide this insight to society by developing and using the best possible models and observations.”

New PhD thesis solves mysteries around large abrupt climate changes

Henrik Sadatzki defends on Friday 15.02.2019 his thesis for the PhD degree at the University of Bergen. The thesis is entitled: “Sea ice variability in the Nordic Seas over Dansgaard–Oeschger climate cycles during the last glacial – A biomarker approach”.

Caroline Clotten defends on Thursday, December 7th 2017 her PhD dissertation at the University of Bergen with the title: "Pliocene sea ice evolution in the Iceland and Labrador Sea – A biomarker approach".

That the ocean slows down global warming by absorbing CO2 from the air, is pure chemistry. But to find out how much, you have to know how the ocean moves. Friederike Fröb's PhD shows that both weather and ocean currents play a role.

Carbon system research group

Research leader
Are Olsen

Co-Leader
Jörg Schwinger

Medlemmer / Members

Ali Aasadi

Inge Althuizen

Pradeebane Vaittinada Ayar

Meike Becker

Timothée Bourgeois

Tristan Cordier

Damien Couespel

Xabier Dávila

Matvey Debolskiy

Chiara De Falco

Tor de Lange

Morgane Demeaux

Dagmar Egelkraut

Filippa Fransner

Friederike Fröb

Shuang Gao

Nadine Goris

Joseph Gaudard

Kjell Gundersen

Aud Halbritter

Bjarte Hannisdal

Christoph Heinze

Solfrid Hjøllo

Kristin Jackson-Misje

Emil Jeansson

Truls Johannessen

Steve Jones

Karolina Jörgensen

Tor Olav Kristensen

Camilla Landa

Siv Lauvset

Joshua Lynn

Joeran Maerz

Laurène Merrilet

Erik Askov Mousing

Pål Tore Mørkved

Jean Negrel

Ulysses Ninnemann

Are Olsen

Abdirahman Omar

Christian Hans Quintana

Jörg Schwinger

Edson Silva

Margit Simon

Øystein Skagseth

Ingunn Skjelvan

Morten Skogen

Tobias Steinhoff

Jerry Tjiputra

Vigdis Vandvik

Tsuyoshi Wakamatsu

Çağlar Yumruktepe

The researchers at the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research work with observations, theory and climate models. The research is organised in four thematic groups:

Global climate – led by Nele Meckler
Polar climate – led by Kerim Nisancioglu
The Carbon system – led by Are Olsen
Climate hazards – led by Stephen Outten