Professor Andy Ridgwell

Professor Andy Ridgwell is a Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Bristol and Professor of Geology at the University of California, Riverside.

Dr Ridgwell writes computer models (‘bad computer games’) – numerical representations of the primary interactions of climate with atmospheric CO₂, including the cycling of carbon, oxygen, and nutrients between land, ocean, and marine sediments.

His main project is developing an Earth system model based around a 3D ocean circulation model, somewhat ridiculously named ‘cGENIE’. He has previously applied cGENIE to a range of diverse questions and time intervals, from geological episodes of extreme glaciation and warming, and global-scale ocean anoxia, through understanding global biogeochemical cycling in the modern Earth system, to quantifying future marine impacts of fossil fuel CO₂ emissions and the effectiveness (or otherwise) of geoengineering.

Current cGENIE-based projects and interests revolve around simulating the co-evolution of marine plankton and their environment, and their ecological sensitivities to past climate perturbations and global environmental catastrophe and elucidating the role of weathering in regulating atmospheric CO₂ and climate. He never sets foot in the lab.