- School of Environmental Sciences
- University of East Anglia
- School of Environmental Sciences
- Norwich
- NR4 7TJ
- UK
- +44 (0)
Research Profile
My research interests include trying to understand the scale and nature of the impacts of atmospheric deposition on the oceans, focussing particularly on the nutrients nitrogen, phosphorus and iron. Iron supply is mainly associated with the transport of desert dust. This work extends to consideration of the impact of contaminants, particularly trace metals, and general issues of atmospheric processes in the marine atmosphere where these impact on nutrients. Our approach to these research questions is mainly associated with field sampling, to collect aerosols and rain, and subsequent laboratory measurements. Laboratory studies of processes such as iron solubilisation from dust are also a feature of our work. Much of the work we do is within the context of larger projects which include both water column and atmospheric sampling and modelling approaches. We use a variety of analytical tools to investigate the sources and supply of the nutrients and contaminants of interest, including bulk measurements, chemical speciation and isotopic analysis. Recent projects include contributions to the UK AMT programme (http://web.pml.ac.uk/amt/index.htm), the 36N consortium (http://www.bodc.ac.uk/36n/index.html) and to a UK SOLAS project on the effects of dust on the North Atlantic.
My other main research focus is on nutrient cycling in coastal waters, particularly the North Sea and also recently the Antarctic. This work includes an interest in atmospheric inputs and their effects, but extends more widely to general studies of the sources and cycling of nutrients and carbon and their impact on phytoplankton productivity. This work currently involves field work to measure nutrient concentrations, both inorganic and organic, and rates of phytoplankton processes such as carbon and nitrogen uptake and evaluating the natural isotopic abundance measurements to trace nitrogen transport. Much of the work is conducted in collaboration with CEFAS at Lowestoft (http://www.cefas.co.uk/). This work has led to an interest in the management of coastal seas and in particular the role of management of intertidal areas to encourage carbon and nitrogen retention.