Acknowledgements

I also thank Andy Watson for much knowledge and valuable advice about CO₂ in the ocean, and particularly for inspiration during my first year. Particular thanks are owed to Gill Malin for patiently preparing so many stock algal cultures, advising how to nurture them, and especially for explaining the difference between them! The Emiliana and Skeletonema stock cultures were kindly provided by Michael Merret and colleagues in Swansea University. My CO₂ gas standards were kindly prepared and calibrated by David Cooper in Plymouth Marine Lab.

Thanks also to Gareth Lee and Rachel Lychowic for help with preparing the cultures, as well as fetching so many barrels of seawater and many other odd tasks in the laboratory, and to Roger and Terry for fixing so many stirring motors and power supplies. Frank Robinson deserves the credit for converting my vague design into a practical gas-tight tank. All the technical and administrative staff in ENV deserve some acknowledgement for maintaining a friendly working environment, as do many faculty and fellow students and others elsewhere, who provided ideas and encouragement.

This work was funded principally by the European Study of Carbon in the Ocean Biosphere and Atmosphere. I thank Jacqueline Etcheto especially for her role in coordinating this research programme, and also Jacqueline Boutin for providing the satellite windspeed and temperature data, and the pCO2 data interpolated from the Hamburg carbon cycle model.

Having acknowledged the advice and help of others with this project, I feel it is a pity that I could not contribute so much in return. The PhD system constrains each one of us to work primarily for his own project, rather than in a team, and from my experience I do not believe that this is the most efficient or inspiring way to train young scientists.

In this rapidly changing world, it is also essential to see the implications of our science beyond the narrow path of academic research. So I thank friends and colleagues who have brought me out of the laboratory and into the international climate negotiations, and who have led me to wonder, whether it is the algae in the sea or the economists and politicians that really regulate the world, or whether it is rapidly going out of the control of either.

I also thank my many friends in Qingdao University for their wonderful hospitality, which provided a refreshing interlude in another culture, whilst inspiring me to think about CO2 in the China Sea.

And finally, above all I must thank Michelle Valentine, not only for help with checking texts and references, but for so many cheerful smiles and patience which kept me going despite all the frustrations of these last three years.