Professor Richard Lampitt

Richard Lampitt is an observational biogeochemist with a main focus on the factors that control the downward flux of material from the top of the ocean into the interior and from there to the seabed. Amongst other approaches this involves long term deployments of sediment traps deep in the water column (eg 3000m). A crucial factor is the export flux of material from the upper mixed layer and he has developed novel ways to make direct measurements of this flux, a notoriously difficult process to measure.

In order to understand the factors that determine the quantity and quality of material mediating this flux, continuous observations are required on a wide range of properties and processes occurring in the upper part of the water column. As a result of this conviction he is heavily involved in the establishment and management of a network of fixed point observatories around Europe. This is the EuroSITES network, a collaborative European endeavour which he coordinates with special responsibility for the observatory above the Porcupine Abyssal Plain in the Northeast Atlantic, the so called PAP site.

He has an increasing interest in issues of direct societal concern and in particular the ways in which the oceans may be encouraged to remove anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. He is co-chair of the ISIS consortium which aims to further research in this area and coordinates the NOC beacon theme on geoengineering which includes such activities.