Andrew James Watson FRS (born 1952) is a British marine and atmospheric scientist and an expert in processes affecting atmospheric carbon dioxide and oxygen concentrations. He was formerly a Professor of biogeochemistry in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, in 2013 he moved to a position as Professor at the College of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Exeter.

Earth sciences

Watson graduated with a first class BSc in physics from Imperial College London in 1975. He then became a PhD student of

James Lovelock James Ephraim Lovelock (26 July 1919 – 26 July 2022) was an English independent scientist, environmentalist and futurist. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the Earth functions as a self-regulating sys ...

, originator of the

Gaia hypothesis The Gaia hypothesis (), also known as the Gaia theory, Gaia paradigm, or the Gaia principle, proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating, complex system that help ...

of Earth regulation, at the University of Reading. He and Lovelock introduced the

Daisyworld Daisyworld, a computer simulation, is a hypothetical world orbiting a star whose radiant energy is slowly increasing or decreasing. It is meant to mimic important elements of the Earth-Sun system, and was introduced by James Lovelock and And ...

model in 1983, showing how ecological competition between hypothetical "daisies" could affect planetary albedo and regulate environmental temperature. Watson and his students have subsequently developed ''a priori'' models for the regulation of atmospheric composition through geological time. He has applied the weak

Anthropic Principle The anthropic principle, also known as the "observation selection effect", is the hypothesis, first proposed in 1957 by Robert Dicke, that there is a restrictive lower bound on how statistically probable our observations of the universe are, beca ...

to evolution on Earth, suggesting that long-term regulation of the Earth’s temperature and environment may be a necessary pre-requisite to allow sufficient time for the evolution of complex life and intelligence, rather than an intrinsic property of the biosphere as Lovelock proposed.

Tracing ocean waters

While at the

Marine Biological Association The Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom (MBA) is a learned society with a scientific laboratory that undertakes research in marine biology. The organisation was founded in 1884 and has been based in Plymouth since the Citadel Hil ...

and Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the 1980s, he developed techniques for tracking ocean water bodies using tracers such as sulphur hexafluoride and perfluorodecalin. He and colleagues applied these to measure the slow mixing vertical rates in the ocean, and to trace the movement of patches of surface water. He also applied the technology to enable

iron fertilization Iron fertilization is the intentional introduction of iron to iron-poor areas of the ocean surface to stimulate phytoplankton production. This is intended to enhance biological productivity and/or accelerate carbon dioxide () sequestration fr ...

experiments. More than a dozen such experiments have now been carried out and have proved that iron is an essential limiting nutrient in important areas of the world ocean.

Popular science

Watson published the popular book ''Revolutions that Made the Earth'' with colleague

Tim Lenton Timothy Michael Lenton (born July 1973) is Professor of Climate Change and Earth System Science at the University of Exeter. In April 2013 he was awarded the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. He graduated with a first-class degree in nat ...

in 2011. In 2015, Watson appeared on Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe Series 3, interviewed by the character, Philomena Cunk.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Watson, Andy 1952 births Living people Alumni of Imperial College London Alumni of the University of Reading Academics of the University of Exeter Academics of the University of East Anglia Fellows of the Royal Society British earth scientists Atmospheric scientists British oceanographers