Championing BioCarbon in the N Atlantic

Biological systems in the ocean play a key role in regulating the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and hence in regulating our climate, with the North Atlantic Ocean immediately adjacent to the UK being a key site where this happens. This is a very topical and important research problem which many countries are interested in working on.

The UK Government has decided to commission a large research programme to study these processes in more detail, and in particular how they might respond to climate change.

The programme is structured in three phases, firstly around identifying key knowledge gaps, then making observations at sea and finally using these new data to improve the models we use to predict the future evolution of climate.

The Programme is seeking a programme champion to lead the integration of the projects within the overall programme and I am applying to deliver this task.

I spent a long time in the UK working at the National Oceanography Centre on this research area, including lots of time at sea making relevant measurements and managing large groups of people to deliver similar projects.

More recently I have been working in Norway for an International Centre focussed on measuring ocean C uptake and supporting the Global Community in this work.

My major effort in Norway has been to build bridges between all the various programmes that are spinning up including work occurring under the UN Decade of the Oceans, the EU Joint programming Initiative, and a large Canadian initiative to measure ocean carbon uptake in the N Atlantic and the role of biological processes in driving this.

I will bring all this experience to bear in supporting this programme including supporting the programme advisory group, building the ship schedule for the programme, leading planning workshops and managing the communication strategy for the programme as well as the data management strategy.

Via these actions I aim to help the UK Marine Science community deliver a landmark piece of work that is well interfaced with the rest of the world and which helps us collectively to manage the impacts of climate change on our planet.