The microscopic marine life in the oceans absorbs vast amounts of carbon from our atmosphere, but the mechanisms behind this process remain poorly understood, and even more poorly represented in climate models. A scientific use case of the EOSC Federation focusing on ocean carbon sequestration will demonstrate how to address this gap, bringing together genomic, environmental, and modelling data within a single, open, interoperable framework.
At the heart of this effort is the EOSC Node | Digital Twin of the Ocean, the EOSC Federation node whose infrastructure and community were developed through the Blue-Cloud 2026 project. Working alongside the Life Sciences Connect EOSC Node, hosted by EMBL's European Bioinformatics Institute, the node is providing the modelling environment in which the science is being done.
The scientific challenge
Marine microscopic communities, collectively known as the ocean microbiome, are responsible for much of the carbon fixation in the marine biological carbon pump. However, current climate models inadequately represent these biological processes of ocean carbon sequestration, due to the significant technical and scientific challenge of integrating, annotating, and modelling massive metagenomic datasets. Current global assessments, including those by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), rely on coarse estimates of biological activity, leaving major gaps in understanding how microbial communities influence carbon storage.
The use case seeks to fill this knowledge gap. As Dick Schaap, technical coordinator of the Blue-Cloud 2026 project, describes it: "We aim to bring together a lot of data and analytical tools to better predict and understand how these processes are working and what their impact is."
The "Biological sequestration of carbon in the ocean" scientific use case video
Blue-Cloud 2026's contribution: the Blue-Cloud workbench
The scientific workflow proceeds in two stages. In the first, genomic data from the global ocean are compiled and annotated via the Life Sciences Connect EOSC Node to identify the taxonomy of marine microorganisms and their metabolic and ecological functions diagnostic of carbon capture, transformation, and long-term ocean carbon sequestration.
In the second stage, this annotated biological data is integrated with physical and chemical ocean data and analysed using an ensemble of global distribution models to predict ocean carbon sequestration potential under past, present, and projected climate scenarios. This stage is developed within the Blue-Cloud workbench, the collaborative Virtual Research Environment of the EOSC Node | Digital Twin of the Ocean, hosted by the Italian National Research Council.
This two-stage pipeline is made possible by the interoperability of the EOSC Federation, which enables genomics, oceanography, and climate modelling to interconnect seamlessly across distributed research infrastructures. Connecting France's Data Terra EOSC Node and Poland's national Node offers future opportunities for regional-scale modelling.
Federating resources to contribute to climate science and Open Science
The use case aims to generate global maps of ocean carbon sequestration potential that will contribute to a more accurate representation of ocean biology in climate assessments. The goal is to incorporate these results into next-generation ocean system models by 2030, including those that inform IPCC assessments.
All models and datasets are made publicly available through EOSC Federation catalogues, ensuring results are FAIR, encouraging reuse and collaboration. Early-career researchers and bioinformaticians particularly benefit, using the platform as both a training and discovery environment. By standardising data sharing protocols and ensuring interoperability across disciplines and borders, EOSC facilitates the interdisciplinary collaboration required to address complex global challenges such as climate change, health, etc.
This use case is a concrete demonstration of what the EOSC Node | Digital Twin of the Ocean, built on the expertise and infrastructure of Blue-Cloud 2026, can contribute to cross-disciplinary European research: a federated digital environment where marine and life science data converge to advance our understanding of the ocean's role in the Earth's climate system.
Read the full EOSC Federation use case brief
