Colin Stedmon is awarded the Statoil Prize 2018 for his internationally recognized research into the chemical composition of the ocean
Associate Professor Colin Stedmon from DTU Aqua has been awarded DKK 100,000 for his contributions in the field of chemical oceanography research. Chemical oceanography is the science of the chemical composition of the ocean and the transport of chemical substances in the aquatic environment.
The Statoil Prize ceremony was held on Friday, 9 March in the National Museum of Denmark’s banquet hall, where a large number of former prize winners turned up to celebrate Colin Stedmon. Among the attendees were prize winners dating all the way back to 1964 and 1968.
Colin Stedmon conducts research into biogeochemistry, and how nutrients and organic matter behave in aquatic ecosystems. He also works with biooptics and photochemistry, and uses chemical tracers and their light-emitting properties in water to describe the chemistry of the different substances and their origin.
When permafrost thaws
The projects in which Colin Stedmon is currently engaged includes an EU-funded project (NUNATARYUK), which examines what happens to the organic carbon bound in the permafrost in the Arctic when the otherwise permanently frozen ground begins to thaw due to rising global temperatures.
The carbon is transported with melt water out into the sea, but what happens then? Is the organic carbon converted into CO2 which ends up in the atmosphere? Does the carbon sink down to and become buried in the seabed? Or is it transported onwards out in the North Atlantic Ocean?
Colin Stedmon’s research is based on field studies—including with DTU’s marine research vessel Dana—as well as on experimental laboratory work, and modelling studies, and there is close cooperation with the neighbouring specialist fields of physical and biological oceanography.