The project aims to analyse and interpret data from cave ice to reconstruct detailed climate histories. Given the increasing vulnerability of cave ice to global warming, the project addresses the urgent need for their comprehensive study and preservation. The budget available in this project will enable Hungarian researchers to travel to Slovenian caves and collect samples together with Slovenian colleagues. The research will create a global database of cave ice chronologies, highlighting both existing knowledge and key gaps that should guide future research. The project’s results will help better predict future climate books, inform environmental policy, and contribute to the global effort to preserve these invaluable natural archives in the face of accelerating climate threats.

Budget: 3 MHUF

Ice stored in glaciers or ice caves is an archive that gives us direct access to the chemical and isotopic composition of past precipitation. We can construct tritium time series, that we can use to determine the age of the ice, and to study various atmospheric processes. This project addresses the following research questions:

1. Confirmation of the link between the solar cycle and the tritium content of uncontaminated precipitation (in ice layers accumulated before the nuclear bomb tests);
2. Verification of those atmospheric general circulation models where tritium and solar cycle are embedded in the model;
3. Determination of the natural level of tritium in the atmosphere comparing recent level of tritium to the pre-bomb tritium.

Study sites in the project include glaciers in the Swiss-Italian Alps, Greenland, Tibet, Kyrgyzstan, and ice caves in Romania, Slovenia, Macedonia, as well as other potential sites where suitable accumulation rates of ice have been determined.

Budget: 18,000 EUR

The aim of the 4-year project is to use greenhouse gas emission data calculated from atmospheric measurements to help refine national emission inventories based on activity statistics. The project focuses on eight European countries, including Hungary. The project places particular emphasis on methane (CH₄), nitrous oxide (N₂O) and halogenated gases (F-gases), which play a key role in the atmospheric greenhouse effect.

The greenhouse gas monitoring station maintained by ATOMKI at Hegyhátsál is one of the stations on which the project bases. Here, atmospheric concentration of nitrous oxide is continuously measured and air samples are taken for F-gas analyses. The emission data calculated from these measurements is shared with the national organizations responsible for the emissions inventories.

The project is being implemented within the framework of a consortium. The 17-member consortium of 8 countries is led by Utrecht University.

The total funding for the project is 3,526,154.50 EUR, of which ATOMKI will receive 178,000 EUR.

In our research, we deal with an important element of water cycle that is precipitation and its isotopic composition. Rainwater is formed by a number of complex atmospheric processes, in different clouds and under dynamic conditions, so it can be divided into two major groups: stratiform (drizzle, fog, rain, snowfall) and convective (shower rain, thunderstorm) precipitation. Atmospheric physical mechanisms give rainwater a characteristic isotopic composition, leaving traces of formation processes. The main goal of our research is to investigate the specific isotope composition of the two main rain types and their spatial and temporal variability. In order to achieve this, we are developing and operating a precipitation collection network in the Carpathian Basin and determine the isotope composition of the collected samples. Using the measured and observed data, we gain insight into the relationship between rainfall type and isotope composition.

Project budget: 27,748,866 HUF

The aim of the project is to establish an internationally competitive AMS C-14 competence centre which is able to develop and market new and efficient sample preparation devices for the radiocarbon measurements and to provide high-level training regarding measurement technology.

Based on the scientific background and professional staff of ATOMKI, together with the equipment development and manufacturing experience of Isotoptech Zrt., a knowledge transfer centre promptly adapting to the worldwide rapidly expanding AMS C-14 analytical demands is going to be established, which is able to serve the recent research approaches and the demands of the market.

The aim of the project, led by the Municipality of Oradea, is to study the origin of the thermal water that feeds Lake Pece in Püspökfürdő. The impact of the water production of the numerous thermal wells in the area to the recharge of the lake is also investigated. The quaternary geological study of the Tövises riverbed in Pocsaj, Hungary, as a similar site to the Romanian studyarea, is also the task of the Hungarian partner.

The aim of this project is to investigate the geo-, hydro- and biosphere of the past and present using isotope geochemical tools in climatology. These techniques are essential to understand the extent and impacts of past and present climate changes. The research direction of the newly-established Isotope Climatology and Environmental Research Centre covers many fields of science; the broad spectrum of state-of-the-art scientific research methodology will include physics, geology, geochemistry, hydrology, atmosphere and climate studies. The project aims to develop and/or phase in new isotopic geochemical methods in our country and in the region. A world-class isotopic climate research centre and knowledgebase will be created as part of the systematic research program in Hungary.

The research project is implemented in the MTA ATOMKI in Debrecen in close scientific cooperation with local and foreign researchers building on existing infrastructure and methods.

In the frame of this project, MTA ATOMKI improves PET (Positron Emission Tomography) methods for medical and research purpose, based on the self-developed small animal PET camera.

Tasks:

• Data aquisition protocols for cell culture and plant labelling, for functional food studies, for various samples and for small animal studies with the small animal PET camera.
• Synthesis protocols for compounds labelled with C-11 and F-18 positron emitter radioisotopes.
• Cell cultures and functional food studies using radioactive isotopes.
• Application of physics, nuclear physics and biophysics in the development of modern biotechnological methods.
• Modelling of vascular system with flow network, studies of cell protein synthesis using Boolean network model.
• Test measurements with the small animal PET camera and Monte-Carlo simulation.

MTA ATOMKI, as a member of the consortium, participates in the National Nuclear Research Program (NNRP) of Hungary. The NNRP is supported by the National Research, Development and Innovation Office. The basic research topics of the NNRP relate to the research fields described in the Research Strategy Plan (RSP) of the Sustainable Nuclear Energy Technology Platform of Hungary.

MTA ATOMKI implements 4 tasks per each of the following research fields of the RSP:

• 1.1.5 - Research of reactor materials - Ageing processes
• 2.4.4 - Modelling environmental emission processes of nuclear power plants
• 3.1.4 - Radiation Protection - Radioisotopes hard to detect

The Hungarian basic and applied research based on lasers is prosperous and internationally recognized in spite of its small extents. This fact is reflected in the decision of the international preparatory consortium of ELI according to which the Hungarian tender for location was supported and Szeged was named as the site of the research institute ELI-ALPS (Extreme Light Infrastructure - Attosecond Light Pulse Source). The main technical purpose of the present project is the familiarization of research methods and light sources connected to ELI-ALPS with the researchers of the various fields of science. The realization of the project will be made by the consortium with constituent institutions of University of Szeged, University of Pécs, Institute for Nuclear Research Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA ATOMKI) in Debrecen and College of Kecskemét. The  leader of the consortium is University of Szeged. MTA ATOMKI together with University of Debrecen as a subcontractor participates in the realization of the project with several training forms.

Training courses (in Hungarian)