Current Post: Reader

Room Number: 01.37E

Telephone: 01603 591529 (+44 1603 591529)

Fax: 01603 591327 (+44 1603 591327)

Email: alex.baker@uea.ac.uk

Web Page: Personal web page

Publications: EPrints Digital Repository

Posts of Special Responsibility:

• Course Director, BSc/MSci Environmental Sciences (Semester 2)
• Natural Science Rep and Placement Director Year in Europe

Atmospheric nutrient supply to the oceans; influences on iron solubility in aerosol; marine and atmospheric iodine cycling.


Biography

My current research focuses on the chemistry of interactions between the atmosphere and the surface of the ocean. A major part of this involves a study of deposition in aerosols and rain of nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, silicon and iron) to the ocean, in order to assess their impact on marine productivity and hence the global carbon cycle. On a global scale, iron is the nutrient for which atmospheric inputs to the ocean have the most significant impact on phytoplankton growth. I study the factors that control how much of the iron that falls into the ocean actually dissolves in seawater as this is the fraction which helps to fuel phytoplankton growth. My other main research area involves the study of iodine cycling in the marine atmosphere (where iodine chemistry influences ozone destruction and new aerosol formation) and in seawater (where the metabolism of iodine by algae is linked to the flux of iodine from the ocean into the atmosphere).
 

Significant Publications

• Baker, A.R., T.D. Jickells, K.F. Biswas, K. Weston and M. French (2006) Nutrients in atmospheric aerosol particles along the AMT transect. Deep Sea Research Part II, 53, 1706-1719. doi: 10.1016/j.dsr2.2006.05.012
• Baker, A.R. and T.D. Jickells (2006) Mineral particle size as a control on aerosol iron solubility. Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L17608, doi: 10.1029/2006GL026557.
• Baker, A.R., T.D. Jickells, M. Witt and K.L. Linge (2006) Trends in the solubility of iron, aluminium, manganese and phosphorus in aerosol collected over the Atlantic Ocean. Marine Chemistry, 98, 43-58, doi: 10.1016/j.marchem.2005.06.004.
• Baker, A.R. (2005) Marine aerosol iodine chemistry: The importance of soluble organic iodine. Environmental Chemistry, 2, 295-298, doi: 10.1071/EN05070.
• Jickells, T.D., Z.S. An, K.K. Anderson, A.R. Baker, G. Bergametti, N. Brooks, J.J. Cao, P.W. Boyd, R.A. Duce, K.A. Hunter, H. Kawahata, N. Kubilay, J. La Roche, P.S. Liss, N. Mahowald, J.M. Prospero, A.J. Ridgwell, I. Tegen and R. Torres (2005) Global Iron Connections between desert dust, ocean biogeochemistry and climate. Science, 308, 67-71, doi: 10.1126/science.1105959.
• Sarthou, G., A.R. Baker, S. Blain, E.P. Achterberg, M. Boye, A.R. Bowie, P. Croot, P. Laan, H.J.W. de Baar, T.D. Jickells and P.J. Worsfold (2003) Atmospheric iron deposition and sea-surface dissolved iron concentrations in the East Atlantic. Deep-Sea Research Part I-Oceanographic Research Papers, 50, 1339-1352, doi: 10.1016/S0967-0637(03)00126-2.

Page last updated 9 December 2011