Ocean Processes in Global Change

The ocean and its associated habitats play a key role in moderating the processes of global change that the planet is currently facing due to human impacts on the environment.

According to the IPCC (2019), since the 1970s the ocean has absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat in the Earth system, as well as between 20% and 30% of the CO2 emitted by humans into the atmosphere since the 1980s.

A comprehensive study of ocean-mediated processes is essential to understand, monitor and mitigate the effects of global change.

The Ocean Processes in Global Change research group applies a multidisciplinary approach to oceanography from a physical, chemical and biological perspective. The group addresses the observation, experimentation and modeling of the evidence and impacts of warming, acidification, fertilization and deoxygenation of marine ecosystems in response to global change, both on the northwest coast of the Iberian Peninsula and in the surrounding ocean.

On the one hand, the group studies marine biological and geochemical processes, with special emphasis on coastal upwelling systems, especially the Iberian-Canary system, and on the thermohaline and chemical evolution of ocean water masses. It is also deeply involved in the study of the biological and biochemical characterization of phytoplankton, the production of planktonic toxins and the dynamics of microbial communities in a changing ocean such as ours.

On the other hand, it explores exchanges between the atmosphere, the oceans and land, as well as the effects of human society on the marine environment and climate. Within this field, the group studies the role of the oceans in dissolving excess atmospheric CO2 and ocean acidification as one of its main consequences. It also investigates sediment exchanges between the substrate and the water column and their implications for regeneration processes both on the seabed (benthic zone) and in the water column itself (pelagic zone).