Project overview

EPOC is a Horizon Europe AMOC research project dedicated to understanding the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The AMOC is the system of ocean currents that moves heat, carbon, nutrients, and oxygen around the Atlantic basin. Warm surface water is drawn towards the poles. There it cools, becomes more saline, sinks, and returns equatorward as deep water. EPOC will generate new understanding of how this system works, how it has changed, and what its future holds.

Many scientific misconceptions exist about the nature of AMOC and its role in climate regulation. EPOC aims to generate a new concept of the AMOC, its function in the Earth system and how it impacts weather and climate. Read more about EPOC’s concept and approach in the Our Work section.

The EPOC consortium brings together the expertise and resources needed to address major gaps in our understanding of the AMOC. It strengthens inter-disciplinary collaboration between experts in ocean biogeochemistry and physical oceanography, and between modellers and observationalists.

EPOC comprises 24 universities and research institutions. Partner organisations are based in France, Germany, and Norway, with associate partners from the UK, USA, and Canada.

Key facts about the EPOC AMOC research project

Funded through Horizon Europe, call HORIZON-CL6-2021-CLIMATE-01

Funding volume: € 8M EC contribution

Duration: 60 months from 1 July 2022

Partnership: 24 partners from six countries

Coordinator: Dr Eleanor Frajka-Williams, Universität Hamburg

The EPOC project’s five scientific objectives

  1. Generate comprehensive records of AMOC transports across the whole Atlantic, to assess the timescales of transport variability and the degree to which the AMOC behaves as a conveyor belt.
  2. Determine key processes that make or break meridional connectivity of ocean transports, and assess their representation in models, especially in high resolution coupled simulations.
  3. Identify the processes and drivers of recent AMOC change. Assess the likely roles of natural forcing, anthropogenic forcing, and internal variability.
  4. Assess the key processes driving future AMOC changes. Identify indicators of abrupt change and AMOC-related climate impacts with societal relevance.
  5. Design, and deploy elements of, a next generation observing system for the entire system of the AMOC.
 
These objectives underpin five scientific work packages. Each is supported by a strategy for dissemination, exploitation, and communication of results.
A Steering Committee oversees delivery of EPOC’s research. Dr Eleanor Frajka-Williams and the EPOC Project Management Office at Universität Hamburg coordinate the project.
Organogram showing the structure of the EPOC AMOC research project: six work packages led by partner institutions across Europe
The components of the EPOC project
Find out more about EPOC’s research:
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