Strands of work within DESIRE
Strand 1 - Methane and atmospheric chemistry
The purpose of this strand is to provide the modeling tools and the data syntheses that will be needed to explore the causes of changes in the CH4 cycle in strand 3.
Strand 2 - CO2 and the carbon cycle
The purpose of this strand is to provide modelling tools and data syntheses that will be needed for the CO2 cycles component of strand 3. WP 2.3 is in a somewhat different category, because it uses ocean modelling to explore particular mechanisms for CO2 change whose importance is still particularly poorly defined. Although the timing of this work means that implementing “improved” physics in models will not be feasible during DESIRE (but rather in legacy projects), its results will provide significant and necessary constraints on the parameter space to be explored in WP 3.5, and will be used to tune the design of experiments in other strand 3 WPs.
Strand 3 - Understanding the nature and diversity of g-ig cycles in climate, CO2 and CH4
Strand 3 addresses the overarching hypotheses and aims described in the introduction. It builds on the developments in understanding, data synthesis, and models from strands 1 and 2. The simulations and analysis are divided into five sub-packages, structured around time period and research questions. The results of this strand will in turn feed into the overall synthesis in WP4, where we will assess the causes of changing atmospheric composition over 800 kyr.