FRANCE
National Contact	Rémi Losno
Email	losnolisa.univ-paris12.fr
Website	http://www.lisa.univ-paris12.fr/SOLAS/
Full Reports (pdf)	Nov 02 Mar 07

NEWS from SOLAS -France (posted 05/12/06)

The french program LEFE (http://www.insu.cnrs.fr/web/article/rub. php?rub=376) hold by INSU (http://www.insu.cnrs.fr), is following the PROOF program for its oceanic part (LEFE-CYBER, "Cycles Biogéochimiques, Environnement et Ressources"). The goal of CYBER is to understand, quantify and modelise interactions between climate, biogeochemical cycles and marine ecosystems. LEFE-CHAT (Chimie Atmospherique) is the pending atmospheric program which have two main goals: anthopogenic atmospheric pollution and fate of greenhouse gases.
ANR (Agence Nationale pour la Recherche) is also supporting some SOLAS french actions. At least, CNRS and Universities provide essentially the man power to conduct the projects.

Previous status of SOLAS planning

The French program PROOF (acronym for Biogeochemical processes in the Ocean and Fluxes), which was lead by Lilianne Merlivat during the last 5 years, has been renewed during the last term of 2001. A new scientific committee has been assigned and new scientific orientations have been defined, in particular, taking into consideration the scientific orientations of emerging programs at an international level, like SOLAS. The PROOF program is now structured according to three main themes :

- Theme 1 deals with " The interaction between climatic changes and biogeochemical cycles through the ocean/atmosphere interface".

The projects funded under this theme (see below) will represent the SOLAS-France contribution to SOLAS-international:

- Theme 2 deals with "The respective effects of climate change and natural variability on the functional structure of marine ecosystems and on biogeochemical cycles".

This theme is not fully relevant of SOLAS, but a few projects conducted as part of this theme might nevertheless be partly related to SOLAS activities.

- Theme 3 deals with "The calibration of palaeo proxies in the present ocean".

 

Future plan for national activities.

The first announcement of opportunity was released at the end of 2001 and the scientific committee had its first meeting in March 2002 to select, amongst the 28 submitted projects, those that would be supported by PROOF (including those under the specific umbrella of SOLAS). Presently, there are 8 national projects sponsored by PROOF that are related to SOLAS activities (another round of proposal evaluations will be undertaken next fall and new projects might be added to this provisional list) :

ACTION : Anthropogenic Carbon : Temporal Increase, Observation and Numerisation (PI : Catherine Goyet, CEFREM, Perpignan).

In this ACTION project, we have assembled a team of well-known scientists with complementary skills (experimentalists and modellers). We will quantify the seasonal and interannual variations of the CO2 flux across the air-sea interface of the Mediterranean Sea, we will use a high resolution physical model coupled with a biochemical model to estimate the current and future carbon uptake and storage in the Mediterranean Sea, and we will estimate the distribution of anthropogenic carbon in the Mediterranean Sea. In this work we will use the following complementary tools: historical data sets, new in situ data sets both from discrete measurements and continual measurements from Buoys, satellite data sets, and modelling. Three experimental sites are selected for temporal studies: DYFAMED, SOLA and off Algerian Coast. DYFAMED will be representative of offshore conditions with restricted advection, whereas SOLA will be representative of littoral coastal where biogeochemical processes are submitted to intense physical stressors.

BIOSOPE : BIOgeochemistry and Optic SOuth Pacific Experiment: (PI: Hervé Claustre LOV, Villefranche):

The objective of the BIOSOPE project is to study, during the austral summer (likely the end of 2004), the biogeochemical and optical properties of different trophic regimes of the South East Pacific ocean, and especially the oligotrophic area associated to the central part of the South Pacific Gyre (SPG). This area is one of the less studied major oceanic entities of the world ocean and presents the interesting particularity of being far away from any desert dust (iron) source. The project will be based on observations conducted along a 28°S line between 70°W (coastal upwelling of Chile) and 140°W, and on the Marquise island plume (140°W, 8°S).

FLAMENCO2 : French acronym for "air-sea flux of CO2" (PI: Philippe Bousquet LSCE, Gif-sur-Yvette)

The overall objective of the FLAMENCO2 project is the estimation of global CO2 air-sea fluxes based on a synergy of oceanographic measurements, atmospheric measurements and inversions, satellite measurements, and ocean biogeochemical models. The project will focus both on geographical variability (within each studied region) and temporal variability (mainly intra-annual and inter-annual) of air-sea fluxes. Some regions of the ocean where the three approaches can be combined to reduce uncertainties on flux estimates will be more particularly analysed. Those regions will be large zones of the oceans of the southern hemisphere (First year of the project) together with North Atlantic and tropical Atlantic (from the second year of the project).

KEOPS : KErguelen: compared study of Ocean and Plateau in Surface water (PI: Stéphane Blain, Brest)

KEOPS will contribute to a better understanding and prediction of the response of the Southern ocean to global climatic change. Particularly, KEOPS will study the effect of natural iron fertilization by the Kerguelen plateau, on the biological pump of CO2 and on the cycles of other chemical compounds relevant to climate (gas and aerosol). It is multidisciplinary project coupling measurements in seawater and the lower atmosphere, as well as physics and biogeochemistry. A strong link with the modellers will also be established.

OCEVAR : Ocean Carbon and Ecosystem VARiability (Pi: Olivier Aumont, LODYC)

OCEVAR is a research project that aims to study the interactions between climate variability and marine biogeochemical cycles on a global scale, using models. Three types of timescales will be addressed : interannual-to-interdacadal present variability, future global changes, and paleoclimatic changes. This project will help to set constraints on the budgets and the associated uncertainties of the carbon cycle and of major nutrients (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Silicon and Iron) in the ocean from the surface to the superficial sediments. The control of the ocean carbon cycle, in particular of the surface pCO2 (regionalization of the air-sea fluxes of carbon), by the biological activity as well as its sensitivity to natural and anthropogenic variations of the climate and of the surface supplies of nutrients will be carefully estimated. A secondary but necessary objective of this project is to improve the existing global ocean carbon-cycle model, with a particular focus on primary productivity and its fate in the water column (multiple phytoplankton groups, variable Redfield ratios,...).

POMME : Programme Océan Multidisciplinaire Méso Echelle (PI : Laurent Mémery, Gilles Reverdin, LODYC, Paris).

POMME is a research project aimed at understanding the subduction mechanisms of 11-12°C mode water in the Northeast Atlantic, how this affects the biological production and the carbon budget, and at describing the fate of organic matter after subduction. The impact of mesoscale dynamics is one of the major objectives of the project. Centred between 16-22°W and 28-45°N, based on 4 cruises with two vessels, using about 100 Lagrangian instruments, 9 moorings (current meters and sediment traps), and real time data assimilation, the major experimental phase was achieved in 2001. One of the major results shows that the largest biogeochemical variability is localised at fronts and in filaments (around several km), whereas differences between the cyclonic and anticyclonic eddies (several 10 km) are much smaller. A global synthesis is beginning, based on data validation and integration, on a definition of a global database, which will be widely accessible by 2004, and on modelling experiments.

UVECO : Induction of microbial community responses and dissolved organic matter transformations by UltraViolet radiation in marine ECOsytems (PI: Richard Sempere, Centre d'Océanologie de Marseille & Fabien Joux, Centre d'Océanologie de Marseille)

This project evaluates the effect of UVR on bacterial and phytoplanktonic communities and on photochemical transformations of dissolved organic matter with a special emphasis in the case of the Mediterranean Sea. Experimental work will be undertaken after coastal seawater collection in the Banyuls/mer Institute and at the Center of Oceanology of Marseille France. The responses of dissolved organic compounds (in term of relative abundance of individual organic acids, sugars and amino-acids) as well as the response of heterotrophic bacteria and phytoplankton will be studied during incubation with natural and UV-lamp irradiations. In addition, in situ experiments will be undertaken in the water column in the Bay of Banyuls. Underwater UV-R and PAR irradiances will be measured in the Bay of Marseille and Banyuls. Atmospheric UV-B and PAR irradiance are already monitored in the Banyuls institute and in the campus of Marseille.

Additionally, one time series program is supported by PROOF and more generally by CNRS/INSU as an "observation service":

DYFAMED : DYnamics of Atmospheric Fluxes in the MEDiterranean Sea (PI Jean-Claude Marty, LOV Villefranche)

The time series measurements began in 1990 with approximately monthly frequency records of core biogeochemical and hydrological parameters (as fo rBATS and HOTS) combined to a survey of atmospheric key parameters monitored at a coastal site. The site for oceanic observations is free from coastal zone fluxes but receives atmospheric inputs North-Africa deserts and from the industrialised countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea. The objectives are to study the variations of hydrography and biogeochemistry at a seasonal and interannual scale, to investigate the ecosystem response to atmospheric deposition compounds and to long term environmental/climate forcing, and estimate the air-sea exchange of CO2. Some SOLAS-related project (ACTION is already one of them) are expected

 

Opportunities for national participation in international SOLAS activities

The above 6 projects as well as the DYFAMED time series program already have significant (sometimes strong) international integration / cooperation, which is, for some of them, specifically related to SOLAS. The PROOF committee will strongly encourage the PI of these projects (as well as of future supported projects) to participate in a coordinated international-SOLAS effort.