Faglige nøgleord: Climate change, Arctic research, Biogeochemical cycles
Oplæg tilgængeligt på: Dansk og engelsk
1 and 2: “No water, no life. No blue, no green”. This was once said by a marine science pioneer, Dr. Sylvia Earl, and I believe that this captures the essence of what research within this field is trying to accomplish. In my PhD project, I explore tiny drifters of the ocean, phytoplankton, which are at the heart of all marine systems. Just like trees on land, phytoplankton in the water is responsible for catching large amounts of CO2 and in return release O2 through photosynthesis. In fact, half of the available oxygen is produced by phytoplankton. This means that every second breath we take is due to the existence of these tiny drifters. The Arctic is changing faster than anywhere else in the world, a phenomenon called Arctic Amplification. As temperatures rise and sea-ice melts, the water itself also changes, affecting nutrients, light availability and ocean currents. This will undoubtably also affect the growth patterns of phytoplankton. By studying what drives these changes, we can try to better understand how the Arctic responds to climate change. This research is important, not only for the Arctic itself, but for the global climate, since shifts in phytoplankton will have chain-reaction effect on the remaining food chain, affecting fish, mammals and ultimately human health.
3) I took my bachelor at KU (Denmark) and then my masters at IMAS (Australia).