I am happy to share the news that my proposal BIOPROXIES has been funded by the Norwegian Research Council within the framework of the Arctic Field Grant call 2023!
About the project
The project aims to identify new chemical indicators of past marine productivity through the analysis of organic compounds preserved in snow and ice. Marine phytoplankton plays a key role in the global carbon cycle, and its productivity may further increase in the Arctic as sea-ice cover declines. Understanding how marine productivity varied in the past is therefore essential to better predict its future evolution and potential climate impacts.
Ice cores represent unique environmental archives, as they allow climate and environmental changes to be reconstructed at high temporal resolution. However, studying marine productivity through ice-core records requires reliable proxies, namely molecules or elements that are directly or indirectly linked to phytoplankton blooms. Some organic compounds emitted during these blooms can be transformed into secondary organic aerosols, transported through the atmosphere, and eventually deposited onto snow surfaces.
Recent advances in high-resolution mass spectrometry and non-target screening now make it possible to characterize hundreds of organic molecules in individual snow or ice samples. This opens new opportunities to identify potential organic proxies for marine productivity and to improve reconstructions of past climate and environmental change.
The samples collected within this project were analyzed within the Ice2Ocean project.
Contributions
- Planned, organized and coordinated Arctic fieldwork.
- Managed coordination with international partners (National Research Council of Italy, Norwegian Polar Institute) for fieldwork logistics and deliverable implementation.
- Dissemination of project outputs.
Partners
The project was funded by the Norwegian Research Council (NOK 100.000).
Paul Scherrer Institute: principal investigator (Francois Burgay), analyses
Norwegian Polar Institute: logistics in the field
Institute of Polar Sciences (National Research Council of Italy): logistics in the field, laboratory facilities at the Dirigibile Italia Arctic Station
Publications
- Frassati, Stefano, et al. “Seasonal bromate formation in the Arctic snowpack: Implications for the bromine biogeochemical cycle.” Science Advances 12.16 (2026)
