Home , Go Back to faculty page KATSUMI MATSUMOTO Assistant Professor and McKnight Land-Grant Professor PhD, 2000, Columbia University Research Group Web Page: Biogeochemical Cycles Office: 220A Pillsbury Hall Phone: (612) 624-0275 Fax: (612) 625-3819 Email: katsumi@...

Research Interests

    The oceans play a key role in global climate change, because they hold large amounts of both carbon and heat. The oceans' carbon-holding capacity is large, because their alkalinity content is high. The world ocean has roughly 60 times more inorganic carbon than the atmosphere. Also, the oceans store a great amount of heat, because of the high heat capacity of water. The importance of the oceans in the global climate system is evident from the fact that small changes in the oceanic storage of either carbon or heat can significantly affect its atmospheric content and thus potentially global climate.

   Trained as an oceanographer, I use numerical models and data analysis techniques to understand ocean and large lake biogeochemistry and circulation of the present and the late Pleistocene. For the present, I attempt to characterize and understand how anthropogenic tracers, such as anthropogenic carbon, chlorofluorocarbons, and "bomb" radiocarbon are distributed in the world ocean. In paleoceanography, I try to understand the distributions of major nutrient elements, such as nitrogen and silicon, and their isotopic compositions in the ocean water column and sediments. A major goal here is to link ocean biology (surface production and interior respiration) and physics (surface processes and deep ventilation) with atmospheric CO₂ content, which has changed dramatically over the last glacial-interglacial cycles.

Courses Taught

• Oceanography
• Biogeochemical Cycles in the Ocean
• Readings in Oceanography and Global Carbon Cycle

Selected Publications (updated Jan, 2008)

• *Nusbaumer, J. and K. Matsumoto, Climate and carbon cycle changes under the overshoot scenario, Global Planetary Change, in press.
• Matsumoto, K. and J. Sarmiento, A corollary to the silicic acid leakage hypothesis, Paleoceanography, in press.
• Matsumoto, K., Biology-mediated temperature control on atmospheric pCO2 and ocean biogeochemistry, Geophysical Research Letters, 34, L20605, doi:10.1029/2007GL031301, 2007.
• Matsumoto, K., Radiocarbon-based circulation age of the world oceans, J. Geophysical Research, C09004, doi:10.1029/2007JC004095, 2007.
• Matsumoto, K. and N. Gruber, How accurate is the estimation of anthropogenic carbon in the ocean? An evaluation of the DC* method, Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 19, GB3014, doi:10.1029/2004GB002397, 2005.
• Matsumoto, K. and B.K. Mignone, Model simulations of carbon sequestration in the northwest Pacific by direct injection, Journal of Oceanography, 61, 747-760, 2005.
• Matsumoto, K., J.L. Sarmiento, R.M. Key, J.L. Bullister, K. Caldeira, J. -M. Campin, S.C. Doney, H. Drange, J.-C. Dutay, M. Follows, Y. Gao, A. Gnanadesikan, N. Gruber, A. Ishida, F. Joos, K. Lindsay, E. Maier-Reimer, J. C. Marshall, R.J. Matear, P. Monfray, A. Mouchet, R. Najjar, G.-K. Plattner, R. Schlitzer, R. Slater, P.S. Swathi, I.J. Totterdell, M.-F. Weirig, Y. Yamanaka, A. Yool, and J.C. Orr, Evaluation of ocean carbon cycle models with data-based metrics, Geophysical Research Letters, 31, L07303, doi:10.1029/2003GL018970, 2004.
  

       *Designates student or postdoc author

 Recent Research Support

• DOE: Changes in the natural ocean carbon cycle during the Industrial period
• UM Grant-in-aid: Numerical modeling of Lake Superior carbon cycle
• UM McKnight Land-Grant Professorship