RIFT-CC: Rifting as a driver of long-term Climate Change
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Leeds
Department Name: School of Earth and Environment
Abstract
Earth's long-term climate changes because carbon dioxide levels change naturally over extremely long timeframes. Over millions of years, changes in volcanic activity can result in higher or lower CO2 emissions, and can therefoe cause global warming or cooling. However one type of volcanism has been missing from our understanding here - continental rifting. This is a process in which continents rip apart to form new oceans, and is known to emit CO2, but is not included in 'Earth system' computer models in a meaningful way. In this project we will map out rift locations and CO2 emissions to add them to a state-of-the-art global model, which we can then use to test the contribution of rifting to long-term climate change. We hypothesise that some rifts will act to remove CO2 through rock weathering reactions, while others may have driven warm periods in the past which are currently not well understood.
Publications
Alcott L
(2024)
Crustal carbonate build-up as a driver for Earth's oxygenation
in Nature Geoscience
Alcott, Lewis J.
(2024)
Crustal carbonate build-up as a driver for Earth's oxygenation
Gernon T
(2024)
Solid Earth forcing of Mesozoic oceanic anoxic events
in Nature Geoscience
Müller R
(2024)
Solid Earth Carbon Degassing and Sequestration Since 1 Billion Years Ago
in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems
Zhang Y
(2023)
Modeling hyperthermal events in the Mesozoic-Paleogene periods: a review
in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
Zheng D
(2024)
Using deep learning to integrate paleoclimate and global biogeochemistry over the Phanerozoic Eon
in Geoscientific Model Development
| Description | This grant has helped us learn about the effects of the solid Earth on long term climate and environmental change. Specifically: - a build up of carbon in the Earth's crust due to tectonic recycling is a key driver of the long term rise of atmospheric oxygen - rifting can contribute to marine deoxygenation events - solid Earth processes - including rifting - can explain much of Earth's long term temperature variation over the last 400 million years |
| Exploitation Route | As proof that in current models of the Earth system, rifting processes can substantially alter CO2 concentration. |
| Sectors | Education Environment Culture Heritage Museums and Collections |
| Title | SCION model extension for continental lithologies |
| Description | Addition of maps of continental arcs, exposed oceanic crust and igneous provinces to the SCION Earth Evolution Model |
| Type Of Material | Computer model/algorithm |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Several key publications addressing high profile hypotheses about long term climate change |
| URL | https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.adm9798 |
| Description | Management committee member and working group lead for COST action EUROBIG - European Biogeodynamics network. |
| Organisation | European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) |
| Department | COST Action |
| Country | Belgium |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Running a working group on model development, and member of management team. Chairing meetings, deciding on spending and allocating funding. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Running the other working groups, co-managing overall action |
| Impact | Group website, textbook in prep, visiting scholorship programmes, conference sessions, support grants |
| Start Year | 2024 |