James Bishop
University of California-Berkeley, CA·Earth & Environmental Science
The ocean's biological carbon pump moves carbon from the air into the deep sea. Tiny photosynthetic organisms take up carbon at the surface, and their remains sink as particles.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Engineering
Chemistry
- Topics
ocean biological carbon pump
carbon cycle
carbon export
- Grants
- 1 known grant, last ended Sep 2026
What they work on
- Engineer and sea-test two robotic Lagrangian Ocean Carbon Observer floats that combine particle flux and particle concentration measurements on missions of months to years, with real-time satellite data relay.
- Deploy sampler-equipped CFE-Cal floats to at least 500 m to validate the optical attenuance proxy for particulate organic carbon and make a first calibration of an optical proxy for particulate inorganic carbon.
- Develop algorithms to quantify, in real time on the floats, how much sinking carbon flux is carried by each particle size class in the mesopelagic twilight zone.
More about the research
This pump helps set atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Yet it changes from week to week and place to place, and ship expeditions capture only brief snapshots. As a result, models of how strong the pump is, and how it will change, remain very uncertain.
Why it matters
Better measurements of how much carbon sinks out of the ocean's surface could reduce uncertainty in climate models and in predictions of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Long-lived robotic floats that report carbon flux in real time could fill gaps left by short ship cruises. Involvement of a float vendor and a sensor manufacturer may lead to commercially available instruments for ocean carbon monitoring.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Brandy Toner
University of Minnesota, MN·Earth & Environmental Science
Determine how dissolved organic carbon and iron-binding organic ligands control the 'colloidal shunt', in which tiny suspended iron particles clump with organic carbon and sink, using experiments across seasons and locations.
Catherine Davis
North Carolina State University, NC·Earth & Environmental Science
Measure which particle types planktic foraminifera collected off U.S. coasts gather, how quickly they clump them, and how this changes the sinking and carbon export of marine snow, using laboratory cultures.
Nicole Lovenduski
University of Colorado Boulder, CO·Earth & Environmental Science
Investigate how small, highly active Southern Ocean hotspots control the transport of heat and carbon between the surface and the deep ocean, using simulations with the Community Earth System Model.
The school
University of California-Berkeley: 46 labs on PI Pages, $1.1B a year on research, 825 research doctorates a year.
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