also

Professor for Environmental Physics
Institute of Biogeochemistry and Pollution Dynamics
Department of Environmental Sciences,
ETH Zürich, Switzerland

e-mail: nicolas.gruber@env.ethz.ch web: www.up.ethz.ch

Education:

Dipl. Umweltnaturwissenschafter, ETH Zürich, 1993
Dr. phil. II , University of Bern, 1997

Research Interests:

My research interests are the study of ocean biogeochemical cycles on regional to global scales and on timescales from months to centuries. I am particularly interested in investigating the cycles of carbon, oxygen and nitrogen as well as those of their isotopes. The goal is to gain a better understanding of the interactions between the physical, chemical and biological processes that control the distributions of these climatically important elements and how these change through time. My primary research tools are the interpretation and analysis of observational data coupled with the use of models ranging in complexity from simple box models to global oceanic general circulation models. My research currently focuses on five different aspects:

1. determining the oceanic uptake of anthropogenic CO₂,
2. investigating the role of oceanic nitrogen fixation and denitrification on the cycling of carbon within the ocean,
3. identifying and studying interannual to decadal variability in the marine carbon cycle,
4. applying inverse modeling techniques to estimate the exchange of heat and carbon and other tracers across the air-sea interface, and
5. to investigate the role of the coastal oceans in the global carbon cycle.
   
   

Publications:

Follow this link for the most recent publication list.

Talks:

You can obtain pdf files of these following recent presentations:

• Houghton lectures: Biogeochemical Cycles and climate
  Nicolas Gruber, presented at MIT, Boston, October 2002.
  

• Lecture 1: Biogeochemical/physical climate interactions and the carbon cycle. [pdf-file](2.4 MB)
  
  
• Lecture 2: The anthropogenic perturbation of the global carbon cycle. [pdf-file](2.5 MB)
  
  
• Lecture 3: Future carbon-cycle/climate interactions. [pdf file](1.4MB)
  
  
• Lecture 4: Insights from the past: What caused the glacial/interglacial CO2 variations? Part I. [pdf file](1.6MB)
  
  
• Lecture 5: Insights from the past: What caused the glacial/interglacial CO2 variations? Part I I. [pdf file ](3.6MB)
  

• Interannual variability in the extratropical ocean carbon cycle: A look at the North Atlantic and beyond.
  Gruber N., N. Bates, C.D. Keeling and C. LeQuere,
  presented as keynote address at the 6th International CO2 conference in Sendai, Japan, October 2001.
  [pdf -file] (1.7MB)
  
  
• Net air-sea fluxes of pre-industrial and anthropogenic CO2 from an inversion of ocean carbon observations.
  Gruber, N., M. Gloor, R.F. Feely, C. Sabine, and J.L. Sarmiento,
  presented at the 6th International CO2 conference in Sendai, Japan, October 2001.
  [pdf-file](1.6MB)
  
  
• Ocean Constraints on the Atmospheric Inverse Problem: The contribution of Forward and Inverse Models.
  Gruber, N.
  presented at the Carbon Data-Model Assimilation (C-DAS) Summer Institute, Boulder, CO, May 2002.
  [pdf-file](5.2 MB)
  
  
• Oceanic uptake, transport, and storage of anthropogenic CO2 : Implications for the global carbon cycle
  Gruber, N.
  presented at the final WOCE conference, San Antonio, Texas, November 2002.
  [pdf-file](3.9 MB)
  
  
• The uptake, transport and storage of anthropogenic CO2 by the ocean
  Gruber, N.
  presented at the final JGOFS conference, Washington, DC, May 2003.
  [pdf-file](9.4 MB) [powerpont-file](4.2 MB)

CV:

Follow this link for a CV.