Jerry is a Principal Scientist with a 35 year career specialising in marine system modelling with an honorary professorship from the University of Exeter. As the senior Marine Systems Modeller within PML, he is responsible for leading, guiding and developing the work of ~20 scientists ranging from post docs to professors. Over his career he has promoted the development of marine biogeochemical and ecosystem models as vehicles for both heuristic and societally relevant studies, in particular balancing appropriate complexity with computational efficiency. He is particularly interested in the interaction of elevated CO2 with marine systems, focussing on Climate Change and Ocean Acidification, environmental risk assessment and monitoring research for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and impact/efficiency determination of marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) techniques.
Regarding climate and ocean acidification he pioneered the development of local and regional scale projections, including impacts and feedbacks to ecosystems, leading a NERC-Defra funded project within the UKOA programme investigating the evolution of ocean acidification in shelf seas.
Jerry has been actively researching CCS since 2004, in a wide range of projects, including as Principal Investigator in the UK funded QICS project which developed a world-first release of CO2 into shallow marine sediments. He had leading roles in the EU funded RISCS, ECO2, STEMM-CCS, PreACT and ACTOM projects, focussed on impact assessment and operational monitoring for offshore CCS, implications of reservoir pressure management and the development of. digital toolboxes for monitoring.
More recently Jerry has led the United Nations third World Ocean Assessment chapter on geoengineering, including mCDR, and is using models to understand and optimise local and regional instances of mCDR.
More generally Jerry has been a principal investigator in >25 national and EU scientific projects developing marine system models for both applied and theoretical research. He is currently institute PI in the NERC National Capability programs Atlantis (North East Atlantic modelling capability), MOET (Managing the Offshore Energy transition) and TerraFIRMA (climate impacts). He provides advice to UK government departments (e.g. BEIS, Defra, Marine Management Organisation), international organisations (e.g. ICES, IPCC, UN), industry and environmental NGOs on issues related to climate change, CCS and mCDR.
Key Projects
- OCEAN ICU – Improving the predictability of global carbon cycles
- ACTOM – Developing Decision Support Tools for Offshore CCS monitoring
- PreACT – Pressure management of Carbon Storage
- NOWMAPS (1/2/3) – Operational modelling for the UK
- ATLANTIS – Developing optimal marine system models
- TerraFIRMA – Global impacts of climate change
- MOET – Managing the Offshore Energy Transition
- STEMM-CCS – Operational monitoring for offshore storage, Horizon 2020
- OeASIS – Ocean alkalinity enhancement impacts and efficiency
Selected Publications
- Blackford, J., et al. (2020). “Impact and detectability of hypothetical CCS offshore seep scenarios as an aid to storage assurance and risk assessment.” International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 95.
- Blackford, J., et al. (2021). “Efficient marine environmental characterisation to support monitoring of geological CO2 storage.” International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 109.
- Blackford, J., Stahl, H., Bull, J., et al., (2014). Detection and impacts of leakage from sub-seafloor deep geological carbon dioxide storage. Nature Climate Change, 4(11), 1011-1016. (131)
- Connelly, D. P., et al. (2022). “Assuring the integrity of offshore carbon dioxide storage.” Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews 166.
- de Mora, L., et al. (2024). “Impacts of Climate Change on the Ascension Island Marine Protected Area and Its Ecosystem Services.” Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences 129(5).
- de Mora, L., et al. (2023). “Choice of forecast scenario impacts the carbon allocation at the same global warming levels.” EGUsphere.
- Dean, M., et al. (2020). “Insights and guidance for offshore CO2 storage monitoring based on the QICS, ETI MMV, and STEMM-CCS projects.” International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 100.
- Dewar, M., et al. (2022). “Impact potential of hypersaline brines released into the marine environment for CCS reservoir pressure management.” International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 114: 103559.
- Dewar, M., et al. (2021). “Analysis of the physicochemical detectability and impacts of offshore CO2 leakage through multi-scale modelling of in-situ experimental data using the PLUME model.” International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 110: 103441.
- Findlay, H. S., et al. (2025). “Perspectives on Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal from the Global Ocean Acidification Observing Network.” Oceanography 38(3): 24-39.
- Flynn, K. J., et al. (2022). “Plankton digital twins-a new research tool.” Journal of Plankton Research 44(6): 805-813
- Holt, J., et al. (2018). “Climate-Driven Change in the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans Can Greatly Reduce the Circulation of the North Sea.” Geophysical Research Letters 45(21): 11827-11836.
- Leles, S. G., et al. (2021). “Differences in physiology explain succession of mixoplankton functional types and affect carbon fluxes in temperate seas.” Progress in Oceanography 190.
- von Schuckmann, K., et al. (2020). “Copernicus Marine Service Ocean State Report, Issue 4.” Journal of Operational Oceanography 13: S1-S172.
- Wakelin, S. L., et al. (2020). “Controls on near-bed oxygen concentration on the Northwest European Continental Shelf under a potential future climate scenario.” Progress in Oceanography 187.
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