Biography

I am a PhD student based at BAS as part of the tropospheric chemistry group, and in the Earth Sciences department at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Prior to starting a PhD I carried out a MSc in climate physics at Utrecht University, and a BSc in physics from the University of Birmingham. During my MSc thesis I investigated the diurnal cycle of the oxygen isotope anomaly of CO2 above a forest ecosystem, by using a coupled land-atmosphere model and through carrying out laboratory work to measure the oxygen isotope anomaly of CO2.

Current research: Methane is a potent GHG that has contributed approximately 20% to the Earth’s warming since pre-industrial times [1]. The oceanic component of the global atmospheric methane budget is highly uncertain [2], it is necessary that we better understand how much methane oceans emit to the atmosphere in order to reduce the global methane atmospheric burden. As a result of climate change, high latitude marine environments are changing in ways that are likely to impact methane release to the atmosphere, highlighting the urgency of increasing understanding of methane from polar marine areas. This research project aims to fill the current knowledge gap around the role that polar oceans play in the atmospheric methane cycle. It aims to investigate methane over polar oceans by analysing ambient methane concentrations measured by a Picarro Cavity Ring-down spectrometer on previous James Clark Ross cruises, investigate methane seeps from polar oceans and to determine the origin of methane in and above polar oceans using isotopic analysis.

[1] Etminan, M., Myhre, G., Highwood, E. J. & Shine, K. P. Radiative forcing of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide: a significant revision of the methane radiative forcing. Geophys. Res. Lett. 43, 12614–12623 (2016). 

[2] Saunois, M. et al. The global methane budget: 2000–2012. Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss. 1–79, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2016-25 (2016).

Research interests

• Atmospheric chemistry
• Greenhouse gases
• Sea-air gas fluxes
• Methane budget