Oliver Andrews

Duration of your PhD: 2010/2013
Thesis's Supervisor: Corinne Le Quéré
Funder: UEA
My Thesis' Abstract: My PhD project is concerned with modelling the impact of anthropogenic climate change on marine biogeochemistry, with a particular focus on the ocean’s oxygen budget. A suite of observations have measured significant declines in the marine oxygen inventory over the latter decades of the 20th century. Ocean oxygen is sensitive to climate forcing such that these declines are likely related to historical global ocean warming. As such, observed trends in O2 could be an important ‘canary down the mine’ in the detection and attribution of anthropogenic climate change in the oceans. Moreover, there is broad consensus from ocean biogeochemical models that the global oceanic oxygen inventory will continue to decline under a range of global warming scenarios. Continued ocean deoxygenation and the propagation of marine ‘dead zones’ in a warming world is likely to have a significant impact upon marine ecosystems, fisheries, and the flux of climatically important gases like N2O and CH4 from the ocean. Thus, a better understanding of future trends in marine oxygen will provide insight into the impacts of anthropogenic climate change on the ocean.

Activity Stream

There are no activities to show.