CLIMATE AND EARTH
SYSTEM SCIENCES
Photo: UHH/Denstorf
3 February 2021
Photo: private
We are proud to announce the successful disputation of our SICSS member Natalie Harms.
Her dissertation "The South Indian Ocean – Biogeochemical studies on water masses, nutrient and stable isotope distribution, and particulate matter in an oligotrophic ocean region" was supervised by Prof. Dr. Kay-Christian Emeis and Dr. Niko Lahajnar.
Natalie Harms worked on biogeochemical element cycling processes in the less explored oligotrophic subtropical gyre of the South Indian Ocean. She conducted a detailed water mass analysis using physical water column profiles that were basis to understand the complex distribution of nutrients and stable isotope signals to identify the sources and transformation processes in the nitrogen cycle. Furthermore, she deployed and recovered sediment trap moorings (2015-2019) in order to assess the particulate organic carbon (POC) export below the euphotic zone and further into the ocean interior and its final accumulation in the deep-sea sediments. This constitutes to the organic carbon pump and is a central part of the global carbon cycle. Thus, her investigations contribute to the baseline knowledge on nitrogen and carbon cycle processes and its budgets in oligotrophic areas that are most likely expand under global warming and thus getting even more important on a global scale.
Natalie was a member of the Institute for Geology at the Universität Hamburg
Natalie's future plans?
Stay in the science of marine biogeochemistry and extend the knowledge on nutrient and organic matter cycling, its transport and transfer in different pools (sinking, suspended, dissolved), organic carbon pump mechanisms (gravitational, physical mixing, biological, etc.), export efficiency, ocean-atmosphere carbon fluxes, surface ocean mixing, and how this may change in a warmer ocean.