The Ocean plays a crucial role in the global C cycle, taking up approximately 25% of the CO2 we emit to the atmosphere, and thus slowing the rate of climate change. The future trajectory of this sink will affect the timing and intensity of the modifications to human processes that we need to undertake in order to stabilise atmospheric CO2 at 450ppm. Our ability to measure and model this sink is limited (evidenced by significant discrepancies between measured and modelled C uptake) with the current frontier area of research being a suite of biological processes related to higher trophic level behaviour within the so called biological C pump. This involvement of higher organisms suggests that human activities (fishing, energy and mineral extraction) has the capacity to affect the ocean C sink however we lack the ability to quantitatively link direct human pressures and ocean C storage. Ocean ICU will measure these key processes and evaluate their overall significance, transferring those that are important into models that inform the IPCC process and in this way contribute to resolving the observed model data mismatch of Ocean C sink estimates. We will take this message directly to the COP in support of the ambition the UNFCCC has to include the ocean C sink in the global stocktake. We will use the fundamental knowledge we acquire around biological systems to evaluate the ability of human interventions in the ocean to alter the carbon cycle and produce management tools that allow the tension between resource extraction and C storage to be addressed. This component will involve extensive dialogue with end users and stakeholders and lead to a Decision Support Tool that will constitute a major contribution to our ability to deliver the Green Deal by allowing us to ask questions around how to manage fisheries and resource extraction in a changed ocean in 50 years time.

The ocean’s biodiversity supports the livelihoods of over three billion people, providing vital services, including food and nutrient cycling. However marine policy and resource management do not yet consider the latest scientific advances, even when the state-of-the-art operational models of the European Copernicus Marine Service (CMEMS) are used. Our objective is to enable CMEMS to deliver novel products that inform marine biodiversity conservation and food resources management, by fusing new data into innovative ecosystem models that integrate biological and abiotic components, habitats, and stressors of marine ecosystems. NECCTON will inter-link new models in the CMEMS systems, thus building novel capacities to simulate higher-trophic-levels, benthic habitats, pollutants, and deliver projections of climate change impacts. We will develop and exploit new data-processing chains, supporting CMEMS' use of novel ecosystem observations, including new hyperspectral data from satellites, as well as available acoustic, pollution and omics data. We will fuse these new data and models by using innovative machine-learning algorithms to improve models and data assimilation methods. These developments will be applied in thirteen case studies, co-designed with fisheries and conservation managers as part of our pathway-to-impact, resulting in the demonstration of Technological Readiness Level 6 of NECCTON products. The project objectives will be achieved by a team of twenty-three world-class organizations with track records for all the key project components. It includes the CMEMS Entrusted Entity and core developers, who will promote the final uptake of NECCTON by CMEMS. On project completion, NECCTON will provide CMEMS with the scientific and technical capabilities to sustain twenty-five new products in their operational portfolio, ultimately enabling users to make informed decisions on the exploitation of marine services, enhancing sustainability and conservation.

The ocean provides us with vital climate and food services by absorbing 30% of anthropogenic carbon emissions and supplying 17% of animal proteins to the world’s population. However, we are still far from accurately estimating these services using the state-of-the-art operational models at the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS) Monitoring and Forecasting Centres (MFCs). The main aim of SEAMLESS is to provide CMEMS MFCs with unprecedented capabilities to deliver indicators of climate-change impacts and food security in ocean ecosystems, such as particulate carbon export and plankton phenology. The central hypothesis of SEAMLESS is that new ensemble data assimilation methods can better estimate crucial ecosystem indicators by integrating the new generation of European Copernicus satellite observations and in-situ ocean data. Specifically, our approach will link coherently biogeochemical and hydrodynamic simulations. The hypothesis is supported by our previous work, in which we improved the MFCs’ model simulations of the plankton stocks at the base of the marine food web by assimilating biogeochemical and physical data from satellites, Biogeochemical-Argo floats and gliders. SEAMLESS will develop a new assimilation prototype that will expand simulations to plankton dynamics and related biogeochemical processes, e.g., plankton phenology and carbon export. This prototype will be disseminated to CMEMS stakeholders and the wider oceanographic community. To guarantee the integration of SEAMLESS into CMEMS, we have assembled a team with outstanding expertise and track records for all the key project components, which includes CMEMS MFC core developers, and will be supported by policy, blue-growth and academic stakeholders. On project completion, six CMEMS MFCs will be able to add new and improved products on water quality, carbon cycle and trophic webs to their portfolios, ultimately allowing users to exploit more sustainably ocean ecosystem services.