Gideon Henderson facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Gideon Henderson
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| Born | 29 July 1968 |
| Alma mater | Hertford College, Oxford St. John's College, Cambridge |
| Awards | Fellow of the Royal Society (2013) |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra), University of Oxford University of Cambridge Columbia University |
| Thesis | The uranium and strontium isotope evolution of seawater over the past four hundred thousand years (1995) |
| Academic advisors | Keith O'Nions |
Gideon Mark Henderson is a British geochemist born in 1968. He studies the Earth's chemistry, focusing on how the carbon cycle works, what happens in the oceans, and how climate change is happening.
Currently, Gideon Henderson is the top science advisor for the UK Government's Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra). This means he helps the government make decisions based on the best scientific information about the environment.
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Education and Early Career
Gideon Henderson went to Altwood Church of England School. He then studied earth sciences at Hertford College, Oxford. Later, he earned his PhD at St John's College, Cambridge, finishing in 1995. His PhD research looked at how uranium and strontium in seawater changed over hundreds of thousands of years.
After his studies, he worked for a short time at the famous science magazine Nature. He then moved to the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in the United States. There, he worked as a researcher from 1994 to 1998, studying with other important scientists.
Work at Oxford University
In 1999, Gideon Henderson returned to the UK. He became a university lecturer at the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Oxford. He became a full professor in 2006 and was even the head of the department from 2013 to 2017. He is also a senior research fellow at University College, Oxford.
In 2019, he took on his current role as the Chief Scientific Adviser at Defra.
Understanding Earth's Processes
Gideon Henderson's research helps us understand how the Earth's systems work, especially the oceans, climate, and carbon. He looks at tiny clues in nature, like special atoms called isotopes, to figure out how things have changed over time.
He often uses isotopes that come from the natural decay of uranium. These help him measure how fast environmental processes happen and when they occurred. He has also helped start using new types of isotopes, like those of lithium, calcium, cadmium, and barium, in his studies.
Studying Past Climate
Henderson's work uses information from the past to understand climate change. He studies the chemistry of sediments (layers of dirt and rock) and stalagmites (rock formations in caves). These natural records show how the climate has changed over thousands of years.
For example, he has used exact timelines from the ocean to understand how ice ages ended and how sea levels changed. He also studied the chemistry of stalagmites to see how much monsoon rainfall in Asia responded to climate changes. His research on stalagmites has also helped us understand how sensitive permafrost (permanently frozen ground) in Siberia is to warming temperatures.
Ocean Research
Gideon Henderson has played a big role in understanding ocean chemistry. He helped start and lead a global science program called GEOTRACES. This program studies trace elements and isotopes in the ocean to learn about ocean processes.
He also led a group that wrote a report for the Royal Society in 2017 called "Future Ocean Resources." His own research in the ocean includes using isotopes to measure how fast ocean currents move and how quickly sea levels are rising.
Removing Greenhouse Gases
Henderson has also worked on ways to remove carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere. He was a founding director of the Oxford Geoengineering programme. He also helped write a report in 2017 for the Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering called "Greenhouse Gas Removal."
His research in this area looks at how natural processes, like the weathering of rocks, ocean biology, and ocean chemistry, can help take CO2 out of the air.
Awards and Recognition
Gideon Henderson has received several awards for his scientific work:
- European Union of Geosciences outstanding young scientist award (2001)
- The Philip Leverhulme Prize (2001)
- The Wollaston Fund of the Geological Society of London (2006)
- The Plymouth Marine Science Medal (2016)
In 2013, he was chosen as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). This is a very high honor for scientists in the UK. He was recognized for developing new ways to figure out the timing and effects of past global climate change. His work helped scientists understand that processes in the Southern Ocean are important for changes in CO2 during ice ages. He also helped connect computer models with real-world data to understand ocean circulation.
