November 2024

Sinikka receives the award of the Universitätsgesellschaft Oldenburg for excellent research 2024.

July 2024

We contributed a chapter to the new edition of the book „Biogeochemistry of dissolved organic matter”! Together with coauthor Thorsten Dittmar, we address the question of why dissolved organic carbon accumulates over such long time scales in the ocean (check out chapter 13)! Thanks to Dennis Hansell and Craig Carlson for coordinating this new edition!

April 2024

Our paper in Global Biogeochemical Cycles is finally published: Mechanisms underpinning the net removal rates of dissolved organic carbon in the global ocean ! In this paper, we show that microbial processes can explain the spatial distribution of dissolved organic matter in the ocean. A central mechanism is the nutrient limitation of bacteria, which hampers degradation of organic matter and leads to accumulation of organic carbon in seawater. These results suggest that the marine dissolved organic carbon reservoir is much more dynamic on short time scales than previously thought. It may play an important role in biological feedback processes in the marine carbon cycle in a changing climate.

March 2024

New publication in GRL: CS₂ Cycling in Seawater: Dark Production and UV Light Driven Consumption in which we show that the trace gas carbon disulfide (CS2), an important precursor of carbonyl sulfide (OCS) is photochemically degraded by UV light in the surface ocean, and is light-independelty produced by dissolved organic sulfur. The publication is part of the project „A novel approach to quantify global oceanic emissions of carbonyl sulfide (OCS)” funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.

Januar 2024

Dr. Leonhard Lücken starts his postdoc within the CBIOMES project. Welcome!

June 2023

New project funded – thanks to the Simons Foundation (USA)! We are looking forward to become part of the CBIOMES community! In our project, we will look into the interactions of phototrophic and heterotrophic microbial communities in the ocean, and their role for elemental cycles – of course by using network model approaches.

March 2023

New publication in JGR Atmospheres: Intercomparison of atmospheric Carbonyl Sulfide, in which the atmospheric transport as well as sources and sinks of the climate relevant sulfur gas carbonyl sulfide are compared among different models. Thanks to Marine for pulling this together!

Also: new Preprint in which we argue, that geoengineering by increasing the concentration of carbonyl sulfide at the Earth’s surface might be more difficult than a previous study suggests, because the ocean turns into a sink of atmospheric carbonyl sulfide, instead of being the net-source that it is now. This change will reduce the amount of artificially emitted carbony sulfide, which reduces the geoengineering effect of increased sunlight reflection of aerosols formed by carbonyl sulfide. Because carbonyl sulfide is also a greenhouse gas, the net effect of cooling by aerosol formation is likely very small. Thanks to Marc for the initiative!

January 2023

Re-discovered: Molecular tales as a cartoon: https://issuu.com/evpae/docs/moleculartales , with great impressions of the daily life in dissolved organic matter research (including Sinikka’s cartoon version). Created by the wonderful Evelyn Pae and Dr. Sasha Wagner.

December 2022

Our working group is growing: Benjamin Owusu has started his PhD, and Dr. Takasumi Kurahashi his postdoc project. A warm welcome to both!

Oktober 2022

Das neue Team „Biogeowissenschaften” der European Geosciences Union stellt sich vor: https://blogs.egu.eu/divisions/bg/2022/09/21/meet-your-bg-team-2022-23/ Prof. Dr. Sinikka Lennartz ist Scientific Officer für den Themenbereich Marine Biogeochemie.

September 2022

Heike und Yasmin nehmen fleißig Proben an Bord der Polarstern während des Atlantik-Transekts PS132 für das Project „A novel approach to quantify marine emissions of carbonyl sulfide and carbon disulphide” (gefördert durch die Volkwagenstiftung). Der Blogeintrag von Yasmin am 25.9.2022: https://follow-polarstern.awi.de/ Herzlichen Dank an die beiden für ihren unermüdlichen Einsatz!

Juli 2022 

Neues Paper in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment über black carbon veröffentlicht!