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Berkeley Lab researchers launch a SOLO
float equipped to measure and report on carbon in the sea. |
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The world's oceans cycle and store far more carbon than any other natural
system. Yet exactly what happens to carbon in the ocean is a mystery,
one we urgently need to solve.
"Before we can decide whether schemes for storing excess atmospheric
carbon in the ocean are safe -- or would even work at all -- we need to
know a lot more about the ocean carbon cycle," says Jim Bishop of
Berkeley Lab's Earth Sciences Division, who studies the chemistry and
biology of the sea.
Now a U.S. citizen, Bishop comes from a long line of Canadians. His father
was an engineer in the Canadian Army, decorated by Queen Elizabeth. "I
thought I was predestined to be an engineer," Bishop remarks. "I
was planning on majoring in engineering at the University of British Columbia
when I fell in love with chemistry."
Fate held another surprise: when a summer job he thought would have him
roaming the corridors of Parliament in Ottawa went to someone else, Bishop
found himself roaming the fiords of British Columbia instead, crewing
a Boston Whaler. An assistant in the Department of Fisheries, his orders
were to "pick up one of every living thing you see."
After a senior year studying quantum chemistry Bishop was back in the
boat, this time as skipper. "By now I was as interested in oceanography
as I was in chemistry, so I applied to do graduate work at institutions
that did both."
Given a choice of renowned establishments, Bishop chose the MIT/Woods
Hole Joint Program in Oceanography "partly for Boston's historic
buildings." On one of his research cruises near the Galapagos Islands,
his thesis advisor, John Edmond, found clues that later led to the discovery
of life around undersea hydrothermal vents.
"The experience with John taught me you almost never find what you
expect at sea; we're continually confronted with exciting new mysteries
to unravel -- which is the great value of a multidisciplinary approach,"
Bishop says. "Working at sea is never easy. I learned not to give
up in the face of obstacles."
Following Bishop's doctorate he earned a postdoctoral fellowship and
research appointments at Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory
and NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, where he used satellite
pictures to study ocean photosynthesis. After a stint as professor of
ocean sciences at the University of Victoria, Bishop joined UC Berkeley
and Berkeley Lab in 1998, where he teaches in the Department of Earth
and Planetary Science and devises instruments to study the ocean carbon
cycle.
"Berkeley Lab has such capabilities: in designing
and building new instruments, in attracting bright, dedicated students
. . . I can't imagine a better place for instrumental oceanography."
More about
Jim Bishop.
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