MOTKA · Modelling the transfer of long-term temperature changes in the atmosphere to the vadose zone of karst regions: from glacial cycles to the ongoing global warming
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2021-06-01 → 2023-05-31
- EU contribution
- €160,932
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Modelling the transfer of long-term temperature changes in the atmosphere to the vadose zone of karst regions: from glacial cycles to the ongoing global warming
This project focus on the impact of temperature in the underground of karst regions. It is well known that caves have a relatively stable temperature that is dominated by temperature above the cave. Thermal conduction is the main mechanism known to transfer the heat from the surface above the cave to the underground. However, in a context of global warming little is known on how current global warming will affect underground temperature in karst regions, affecting subterranean ecology, microclimate, hydrology, cave art conservation etc. This project has developed a series of models to transfer different scenarios of temperature changes to the underground at different scales, from the past glacial cycle to future global warming scenarios. We are living a period of global warming that is noticeable at human scale. One of the unsuspected impacts of climate change will be warming up the deep underground of karst regions. Changes in the thermal regime will impact the underground environment, affecting not just the nature but the people using it as a resource. So, knowing future scenarios could help to plan accordingly. The general aim of MOTKA project is to investigate the impact of climate changes in the karst underground (including caves), by using thermal conduction models implemented at different scales, from glacial cycles to the current global warming, as well as exploring the consequences of those changes in one of the multiple fields affected by those underground temperature changes.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Karst covers approximately 20% of land on Earth, and most caves are in these regions. Temperature records of most caves in the vadose zone (above the phreatic level) have a limited variability through the year and its value is close to the mean annual temperature of the atmosphere above the cave. This thermal coupling is the result of the atmospheric thermal signal being transferred underground by conduction and its anomalies being attenuated and delayed with depth. However, during persistent climate changes, cave and external atmosphere temperatures are temporarily decoupled. The change in cave temperatures (and in the full vadose zone) has major implications for numerous disciplines: ecology of underground environments, conservation of cave art, endurance/formation of ice in alpine caves or in permafrost regions, geochemistry of groundwater and paleoclimate records of speleothems, and also climate change because of the radiation of ground heat to the atmosphere. Experimental studies in karst regions already confirmed that thermal conduction models reproduce the cave temperature of past decades. So, the MOTKA proposal aims to simulate the temperature of caves during long-term climate changes using thermal conduction models, as well as to study the consequences of those changes in one particular discipline: paleoclimate d18O records from speleothems. Our integrated view of ocean paleoclimate records and cave environments is pioneer and enables to simulate past cave temperature records. The MOTKA proposal will apply for the first time thermal models to long-term climate changes, including glacial cycles, millennial oscillations, the ongoing global warming and its projection into the future. The simulations of this research will add a temporal dimension to the complex dynamics in underground environments. As an applied example, MOTKA proposal will explore the impact of thermal decoupling in the paleoclimate interpretation of speleothem d18O records.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA · SalamancaCoordinatorSpain
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union