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Annabel Payne

Photo of Annabel Payne

Address:

4800 Oak Grove Drive

Pasadena, CA 91109

Curriculum Vitae:

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Member of:

Carbon Cycle And Ecosystems

Visiting Postdoc

Biography

I use radionuclides released from European nuclear reprocessing facilities to trace Atlantic Water circulation and anthropogenic carbon storage in the mid-depth and deep ocean. I am expanding this work by using the radionuclides in ECCO to investigate Arctic carbon budgets and by using other transient tracers (CFC and SF6) to investigate residence times and carbon storage in the Pacific Water layer. I also have a not-so-secret side quest that uses neodymium and hafnium isotopes to investigate water mass inputs and transformations on the Bering Sea Shelf and to quantify freshwater components in the Beaufort Gyre. 

Education

  • 2015 - 2019:  BSc and BPhil in Geology and Geophysics, Macquarie University, Australia
  • 2019 - 2021: MSc in Marine Geoscience, CAU Kiel and GEOMAR, Germany
  • 2021 – 2026 PhD in Oceanography, ETH Zürich, Switzerland

Community Service

  • Co-Founder, "Habitile – Greening the Kieler Förde" (2020–2022) - installed a test site of eco-engineered habitat tiles on seawalls in the Kiel harbour.
  • Organising and chairing various workshops and conference sessions.

Research Interests

Carbon cycle, transient tracers, natural and anthropogenic radiogenic isotopes as ocean tracers

Selected Awards

  • Swiss National Science Foundation, Postdoc.Mobility Fellowship (2026-2028)
  • City of Kiel, recognition for community contribution, "Greening the Kieler Förde," (2022).
  • DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) Scholarship (2020-2022)

Selected Publications

  1. Abbott, A.N., Löhr, S.C., Payne, A., Kumar, H., Du, J.,Widespread lithogenic control of marine authigenic neodymium isotope records?Implications for paleoceanographic reconstructions. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 2021 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2021.11.021
  2. Payne, A., Wefing, A-M., Christl, M., Vockenhuber, C., Williams, W., Smith, J.N., Casacuberta, N. Circulation Timescales and Pathways of Atlantic Water in the Canada Basin: Insights from Transient Tracers 129I and 236U. JGR: Oceans https://doi.org/10.1029/2023JC020813 Selected as journal highlight and recognised as a top viewed article.
  3. Wefing, A-M., Payne, A., Scheiwiller, M., Vockenhuber C., Christl, M., Tanhua, T., Casacuberta, N., Changes in Atlantic Water circulation in the central Arctic Ocean between 2011 and 2021 inferred from tracer observations. Ocean Science https://doi.org/10.5194/os-21-3311-2025
  4. Payne, A., Raimondi, L., Wefing, A.M., Vockenhuber, C., Pérez-Tribouillier, H., Williams, W., Zimmermann, S. and Casacuberta, N., Nuclear waste radionuclides unveil three decades of anthropogenic carbon in the Canada Basin of the Arctic Ocean. Nature Communications https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71115-6