James Ward

PhD student, University of Bristol

Project title: Marine Sediments and seafloor nutrient cycling in a changing Arctic

Supervisors: Dr Kate Hendry (University of Bristol), Dr Jemma Wadham (University of Bristol), Dr Sandra Arndt (Université libre de Bruxelles), Dr Christian März (University of Leeds)

I will be using reactive-transport models (RTMs) to look into benthic recycling fluxes from Arctic shelf sediments, in order to identify the most important controls on the timing and magnitude of these fluxes under changing environmental conditions.

The Arctic Ocean is subject to strong seasonal to long-term fluctuations in a number of factors, including: sea-ice extent, temperature, bottom water conditions, deposition fluxes and bioturbation.

I will be exploring the benthic response to fluctuations in both the seasonal and climate-relevant timescales through comprehensive sensitivity studies using RTMs but I will also be generating geochemical records from samples collected in the field in order to carry out a data-model comparison.

I am a PhD student in the ChAOS project.