Patrick Rafter

@oceanandclimate.bsky.social

1326 Followers 703 Following

Ocean, carbon cycling, and climate: yesterday, today, and tomorrow

A white and black dog sits on a road in coast New Jersey. The sun is in the sky behind him, but it is orange-brown because of smoke
A description for AGU 2026 Fall meeting session titled: GC049 - Establishing the scientific basis for marine Carbon Dioxide Removal (mCDR) The details are: In addition to being an important mandate for restraining future warming, marine Carbon Dioxide Removal (mCDR) is an interesting research question for Earth scientists of many specialties. Here, we are requesting abstracts for studies across the research spectrum-from biology to geochemistry-that provide insight to mCDR applications. All lab, field, or model-based research on mCDR is encouraged to submit to our session. Of particular interest are novel methods and results for mCDR applications as well as measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV). The conveners are Patrick A. Rafter and Mathis Hain
An image of Francois Primeau, Professor at UCI Earth System Science taken in 2026
My friend and UCI Earth System Science Professor Francois is standing on stage giving his talk at the 2025 Gordon Conference on Chemical Oceanography
A black and white dog rests on a deck overlooking the spring green marsh of southern New Jersey
A person holding slides made for micropaleontology (to hold forams) in front of a box that says Micropaleoworks. Also a bundle of pencils
A white dog with black patches over each eyes looks cute as heck while resting on a fuzzy rug. His name is Petey
The acknowledgments section from our paper that says: We dedicate this paper to the memory of our first author, Markus Kienast (1969-2025), who passed away after the submission of this manuscript. Markus was an exceptional scientist, mentor, colleague, and dear friend whose intellectual rigor, generosity, and candor profoundly shaped this work. His enthusiasm for science and his joy in collaboration left a lasting imprint on us and on all who had the privilege to work with him. He is deeply missed. The authors thank Brad Erkkila (Yale Analytical and Stable Isotope Center, YASIC) for 8'SN analysis and Emma Tanguchi (Dalhousie) for sample preparations and determinations of biogenic opal. Birgit Meyer-Schack, Maike Steinkamp, and Henning Kuhnert at the Laboratory for Stable Isotopes (MARUM) are acknowledged for 8180 analysis. Lowell Stott (USC) kindly shared an unpublished age model of core MD98-2177. This study would not have been possible without sediment core material recovered during Marion Dufresne (IMAGES) and RV SONNE expeditions.
A mega nerd wearing two pairs of headphones, one pink and one orange
The castle at the University of Glasgow
A sign that says climate and ocean change
Interior of the SEC building with purple and red lighting
A map of Glasgow showing Google review score of 4.4 for The Kent Fish & Chip Shop "Their vegan haggis is to die for!"
A crowd of people wearing headphones attending a presentation on ocean alkalinity enhancement in estuaries
A sunny cityscape in Glasgow Scotland
A sunny city street somewhere in Edinburgh Scotland
An item for sale on Facebook Marketplace. A "really big boulder" for $250 to quote the ad: Approximately 7'L × 6'W × 3.5'H Really big boulder. It's very old, but should still last a long time. It has three friends in my yard as well. I would move it for you but I'm not that strong. You will probably need to find a construction company with a front end loader and lowboy trailer.
An image of celestial seasonings Bangalore Spice tea
...mocrats-science.house.gov According to the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the HUD takeover of the NSF building involves plans for several luxury upgrades for HUD Secretary Scott Turner, including: • A dedicated executive suite for the HUD Secretary on the 19th floor. • The construction of an executive dining room. • Reserved parking spaces for the Secretary's 5 cars. • Exclusive use of one elevator for the Secretary. • A space dedicated to hosting the Secretary's executive assistants on the 18th floor. • A potential gym for the HUD Secretary and his family.
The Tiger by Nael, age 6 From They're Singing a Song in Their Rocket The tiger He destroyed his cage Yes YES The tiger is out
View of Professor Noelle Held standing in front of a slide discussing marine biogeochemistry
UCLA Professor Daniele Bianchi welcoming us to the 2025 So Al BOOM. Slide in the background shows the original “BOOMers”
A question I answered for AGU registration that says, "What is your primary reason for visiting the exhibit hall?" and my honest answer is "free stuff"
An advertisement for an AGU article describing Southern Ocean outgassing as a "burp" and the button linking to the article says "EXCUSE YOU"
A person completely covered in grey knit wool
A person in grey wool. All wool. Knit wool from head to toe
The results of a box model comparing wind stress (Tau-x; on the x axis) to buoyancy frequency (N^2; y axis). The diagonal colored lines of this figure show the changes in upwelling possible for the different x and y values. An orange arrow shows how modern conditions (estimated from Karnauskas' new 2025 paper in Journal of Climate) can retain the same upwelling rate despite weaker wind forcing.
A plot showing bulk sediment N isotope measurements from the western equatorial Pacific (WEP) over the past 5 million years. Although there is higher frequency variability (see Rafter & Charles 2012 for description of the past 1 million years), these values start around 5 per mil (parts per thousand) at ~4.5 million years ago and increase about 1 per mil per million years to the present. The bulk sediment N isotopes (d15N) from the eastern equatorial Pacific show similar trends, but at lower values. They begin at about 1 per mil 5 million years ago and increase to about 5 per mil in the most recent measurements.
A plot showing proxy temperature records over the past 5 million years (time going forward to the left). The western equatorial Pacific sea surface temperatures (SST; top) are relatively flat, averaging between ~28-to-30 Celsius. This differs from the eastern equatorial Pacific proxy sea surface temperatures (2nd down on the plot), which decrease from an average of ~26 in the Pliocene to 22 Celsius over the 5 million years. The 3rd dataset down on the plot is the proxy subsurface temperatures for ~100 meters depth in the eastern equatorial Pacific, which is closer to the eastern sea surface temperatures during the Pliocene. The bottom of this plot shows two proxy estimates of eastern equatorial Pacific primary production over the past 5 million years. One is the mass accumulation rate of the organic compound alkenones and the other is the mass accumulation rate of barite. There is a lot of unshared variability between these primary productivity proxy records with neither showing increased production towards the present.
A side by side comparison of equatorial Pacific iron recycling as upwelling changes (here seasonally, but similar behavior is expected for El Niño and La Niña events). The left side has slower upwelling (boreal spring / El Niño events), which allows for more iron to be preferentially cycled. This contrasts with boreal fall / La Niña events, where upwelling is faster along the equator and fewer iterations of iron recycling can occur. Thus slower upwelling allows for more iron to be recycled, allowing for more nitrate to be consumed. This explains the observed seasonal changes in nitrate utilization at the equator.
A comparison of sea surface temperatures for El Niño events (left), which show much warmer waters throughout the tropical Pacific, and La Niña events (right) showing a distinct "tongue" of cooler waters in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. Figure lifted from https://gml.noaa.gov/obop/mlo/educationcenter/students/brochures%20and%20diagrams/noaa%20publications/El%20Nino%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf
A figure with three panels. Top panel (A) shows nitrate concentrations for the top 200 m along the equatorial Pacific. These concentrations shoal up to the surface in the east. Lines show the temperature, which is very similar to the nitrate concentrations (cooler temperatures with higher nitrate concentrations) also shoaling to the surface in the east. A white line show the Mixed Layer (ML) depth, which gets deeper to the west and broadly matches the nitrate and temperatures. The 2nd panel down (B) shows climatological surface nitrate concentrations from 20 north to 20 south in the tropical Pacific, highlighting the presence of a higher concentration "nutrient tongue" in the eastern equatorial Pacific. The 3rd panel down (C) shows the surface temperatures for the same area as panel (B). This shows cooler temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific.
An illustration showing the new view of the equatorial Pacific temperature, nutrients, upwelling, and subsurface oxygen during the Pliocene epoch (5.3 to 2.6 million years ago)
an advertisement for an AGU article that says, "Mysteriously Bright Waters near Antarctica Explained Shiny-shelled diatoms make a remote part of the Southern Ocean appear especially reflective in satellite imagery. SPOILER: IT'S DIATOMS"
A person’s hand holding a copy of the book Tracers in the Sea by WS Broecker and TH Peng
A panel from figure 1 of the Thompson and Shackleton paper in Nature from 1980. Shows the circulation of the northwest pacific “today”. Clearly hand drawn black and white illustration and it is beautiful
Screengrab of the beginning of a spam email that says Dear Dr. {FNAME}
A lineup view of the 5 members of the fictional, animated death metal band Dethklok. Left to right: William Murderface, Skwisgaar Skwigelf, Nathan Explosion, Pickles, and Toki Wartooth.
A screenshot of the Plan Sea podcast, describing this episode interviewing Dr. Jaime Palter and Dr. Dariia Atamanchuk on Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement
Hey man, is singing and playing a piano and the text says till photosynthetic bacteria blue green
The 2024 list of national medal of science recipients
The butterfly meme or A cartoon man looks at a butterfly and says “is this woke”
Abstract images of sea life are projected onto the walls of a room full of people. The location is called Artechouse (art + tech+ house) in Washington DC
A photo of a presentation that says Denticle Duolingo. Shown during a talk by Elizabeth Sibert
Jess Adkins on left and Adam Subhas on the right. Celebrating after Jess gave the Emiliani lecture
List of the recipients of the Cesare Emiliani Lecture at the 2024 AGU Fall meeting. Jess Adkins received the honor this year
A foggy / rainy night view of the US Capitol
A text message that says “It's chaos in the conference center. Fleece and puffy jacket chaos.”
A glass vial filled with seawater. The label says “SMOW-1 Amp 14 bottled 17 June 68”
The logo for the estimating the circulation and climate of the ocean (ECCO) program
Text message that says “remember when this was CDR” and then an image of a package of recordable Compact Discs