dr.davidarcher

David Archer is a computational ocean chemist at the University of Chicago. He has published research on the carbon cycle of the ocean and the sea floor, at present, in the past, and in the future. The ocean contains fifty times more carbon than does the atmosphere, and the ocean controls the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere on time scales of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years. The atmospheric pCO2 that the ocean chooses depends on all kinds of things, such as the effect of phytoplankton on the chemistry of surface waters, and the effect of CaCO3 dissolution and production on the pH of the ocean. Dr. Archer has worked on the ongoing mystery of the low atmospheric CO2 concentration during glacial time 20,000 years ago, and on the fate of fossil fuel CO2 on geologic time scales in the future, and its impact on future ice age cycles, ocean methane hydrate decomposition, and coral reefs. Archer is writing a textbook for non-science major undergraduates called "Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast" to be published by Blackwell.