INTEGRAL

Integrated carboN and TracE Gas monitoRing for the bALtic sea

 

BONUS INTEGRAL is an integrated project funded within the BONUS Blue Baltic Call. It comprises eight partners from five nations and runs from July 2017 to June 2020. BONUS INTEGRAL seeks to demonstrate and exploit the potential added value of the marine stations of ICOS and similar instrumentation for the ecosystem state assessment of the Baltic Sea as an important contribution to a state-of-the-art improved HELCOM monitoring.

Currently, twelve European nations are national partners of the Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS), the pan-European research infrastructure (RI) to provide high-precision data on Greenhouse Gas fluxes and budgets. Four of the pan-Baltic countries (Finland, Sweden, Germany, Denmark) are already partners in the ICOS RI with partly or fully established infrastructure, other countries like Poland and Estonia are currently in the process of developing their strategy towards ICOS. The overall aim of ICOS with its large investments is to provide European-wide CO₂ and – to a lesser extent – non-CO₂ (i.e. methane and nitrous oxide) greenhouse gas concentration and flux data.

BONUS INTEGRAL seeks to demonstrate and exploit the potential added value of the marine stations of ICOS and similar instrumentation for the ecosystem state monitoring of the Baltic Sea as an important contribution to a state-of-the-art improved HELCOM monitoring. In direct response to the requirements of the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive, BONUS INTEGRAL will provide new approaches for the monitoring of marine eutrophication and acidification, and explore the integrated greenhouse gas flux as a potential new indicator for the good environmental status of the Baltic Sea.

Integrating the different components and data streams of ICOS, related infrastructure, and pre-existing related data in the pan-Baltic Sea area will be in the core of BONUS INTEGRAL. Field studies will be conducted to assure operation and install amendments to existing infrastructure in maximizing innovation and gained knowledge. One major aim of the project is to provide best possible experimentally based seasonal surface concentration charts of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide over the Baltic Sea.

Within BONUS INTEGRAL, the carbon system implementation in an existing high resolution, physical-biogeochemical model will be scrutinised and improved, and the model results will be evaluated against observations of the carbon system (and other variables). This approach is based on the strong, scientifically underpinned belief that the cycling of carbon is the key variable of marine biogeochemistry, is linking the effects of eutrophication and deoxygenation, and determines the magnitude of coastal acidification.

In order to strengthen the Baltic Sea ecosystem monitoring, the project will advise the implementation of ICOS in the south-eastern countries of the Baltic, and actively promote the implementation of an ocean (sea) component. The aim is also to demonstrate the added value of using greenhouse gas data in combination with carbon system data, and promote project’s findings towards a better, cost effective ecosystem based monitoring of the Baltic Sea.

 

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THE BONUS INTEGRAL project receives funding from BONUS (Art 185), funded jointly by the EU, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Swedish Research Council Formas, the Academy of Finland, the Polish National Centre for Research and Development, and the Estonian Research Council.