About

Scott Doney is the Joe D. and Helen J. Kington Professor in Environmental Change at the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia. His research spans oceanography, climate, and biogeochemistry, with an emphasis on numerical models, remote sensing, and data analysis. He is particularly interested in how the global carbon cycle and ocean ecology respond to natural and human-driven climate change signals such as ocean warming, sea-ice loss, and ocean acidification due to the invasion of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning. His work aims to understand the biophysical dynamics of ocean fronts, marine N2O cycling, and the impacts of climate change on marine heterotrophic bacteria, among other topics. Doney's contributions include developing models and analyzing data to assess regional and global impacts of climate change on ocean systems, and he has authored numerous publications in this field.

Research topics

• Ecology
• Environmental science
• Oceanography
• Computer Science
• Environmental resource management
• Geology
• Biology
• Chemistry
• Natural resource economics
• Business
• Environmental economics
• Economics
• Engineering
• Climatology
• Sociology
• Paleontology
• Atmospheric sciences
• Mathematics
• Environmental protection
• Waste management
• Statistics
• Agroforestry
• Environmental chemistry

Selected publications

• Diverse carbon dioxide removal approaches could reduce impacts on the energy–water–land system

  Nature Climate Change · 2023 · 188 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Environmental science
  • Environmental resource management
  PublisherDOI

• Microbial metabolites in the marine carbon cycle

  Nature Microbiology · 2022 · 245 citations

  • Environmental chemistry
  • Ecology
  • Environmental science
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Simulations With the Marine Biogeochemistry Library (MARBL)

  Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems · 2021 · 190 citations

  • Environmental science
  • Oceanography
  • Atmospheric sciences

  Abstract The Marine Biogeochemistry Library (MARBL) is a prognostic ocean biogeochemistry model that simulates marine ecosystem dynamics and the coupled cycles of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, iron, silicon, and oxygen. MARBL is a component of the Community Earth System Model (CESM); it supports flexible ecosystem configuration of multiple phytoplankton and zooplankton functional types; it is also portable, designed to interface with multiple ocean circulation models. Here, we present scientific documentation of MARBL, describe its configuration in CESM2 experiments included in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project version 6 (CMIP6), and evaluate its performance against a number of observational data sets. The model simulates present‐day air‐sea CO 2 flux and many aspects of the carbon cycle in good agreement with observations. However, the simulated integrated uptake of anthropogenic CO 2 is weak, which we link to poor thermocline ventilation, a feature evident in simulated chlorofluorocarbon distributions. This also contributes to larger‐than‐observed oxygen minimum zones. Moreover, radiocarbon distributions show that the simulated circulation in the deep North Pacific is extremely sluggish, yielding extensive oxygen depletion and nutrient trapping at depth. Surface macronutrient biases are generally positive at low latitudes and negative at high latitudes. CESM2 simulates globally integrated net primary production (NPP) of 48 Pg C yr −1 and particulate export flux at 100 m of 7.1 Pg C yr −1 . The impacts of climate change include an increase in globally integrated NPP, but substantial declines in the North Atlantic. Particulate export is projected to decline globally, attributable to decreasing export efficiency associated with changes in phytoplankton community composition.

  PublisherDOI

• Values-Based Scenarios of Water Security: Rights to Water, Rights of Waters, and Commercial Water Rights

  BioScience · 2021 · 19 citations

  • Sociology
  • Environmental resource management
  • Natural resource economics

  Abstract Although a wide body of scholarly research recognizes multiple kinds of values for water, water security assessments typically employ just some of them. In the present article, we integrate value scenarios into a planetary water security model to incorporate multiple water-related social values and illustrate trade-offs among them. Specifically, we incorporate cultural values for environmental flows needed to sustain ecosystem function (rights of waters), the water requirements of a human right to food (rights to water), and the economic value of water to commercial enterprise (commercial water rights). Pairing quantitative hydrological modeling with qualitative systems of valuing, we suggest how to depict the available water for realizing various combinations of the values underlying those rights. We account for population growth and dietary choices associated with different socioeconomic pathways. This pluralist approach incorporates multiple kinds of values into a water security framework, to better recognize and work with diversity in cultural valuation of water.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Modulation of ocean acidification by decadal climate variability in the Gulf of Alaska

  Communications Earth & Environment · 2021 · 49 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Oceanography
  • Environmental science
  • Climatology

  Abstract Uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by the surface ocean is leading to global ocean acidification, but regional variations in ocean circulation and mixing can dampen or accelerate apparent acidification rates. Here we use a regional ocean model simulation for the years 1980 to 2013 and observational data to investigate how ocean fluctuations impact acidification rates in surface waters of the Gulf of Alaska. We find that large-scale atmospheric forcing influenced local winds and upwelling strength, which in turn affected ocean acidification rate. Specifically, variability in local wind stress curl depressed sea surface height in the subpolar gyre over decade-long intervals, which increased upwelling of nitrate- and dissolved inorganic carbon-rich waters and enhanced apparent ocean acidification rates. We define this sea surface height variability as the Northern Gulf of Alaska Oscillation and suggest that it can cause extreme acidification events that are detrimental to ecosystem health and fisheries.

  DOI

• The Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Marine Ecosystems and Reliant Human Communities

  Annual Review of Environment and Resources · 2020 · 658 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Environmental science
  • Oceanography
  • Ecology

  Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) levels, from fossil fuel combustion and deforestation, along with agriculture and land-use practices are causing wholesale increases in seawater CO 2 and inorganic carbon levels; reductions in pH; and alterations in acid-base chemistry of estuarine, coastal, and surface open-ocean waters. On the basis of laboratory experiments and field studies of naturally elevated CO 2 marine environments, widespread biological impacts of human-driven ocean acidification have been posited, ranging from changes in organism physiology and population dynamics to altered communities and ecosystems. Acidification, in conjunction with other climate change–related environmental stresses, particularly under future climate change and further elevated atmospheric CO 2 levels, potentially puts at risk many of the valuable ecosystem services that the ocean provides to society, such as fisheries, aquaculture, and shoreline protection. Thisreview emphasizes both current scientific understanding and knowledge gaps, highlighting directions for future research and recognizing the information needs of policymakers and stakeholders.

  DOI

• Food–energy–water implications of negative emissions technologies in a +1.5 °C future

  Nature Climate Change · 2020 · 221 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Environmental science
  • Natural resource economics
  DOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: CarboMODE: Carbon Dioxide Dynamics in Mode Water of the North Atlantic Ocean

  NSF · $187k · 2007–2011

• Analysis and interpretation of Tritium and Helium tracer data collected in the North Pacific in 2015.

  NSF · $422k · 2015–2018

• ITR Collaborative Research: Diversity of Biogeochemical Processes: Modeling Multiple Biomes on Multiple Flow Scales in the Eastern Pacific Ocean

  NSF · $200k · 2003–2007

• Collaborative Research: ETBC--The Cycling of Nitrogen in an Earth System Model: Constraints and Implications for Climate Change

  NSF · $327k · 2010–2013

• Collaborative Research: Carbon-Climate Interactions with Increasing Water Demand

  NSF · $861k · 2006–2011

Frequent coauthors

• Laurent Bopp

  Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

  125 shared

• Keith Lindsay

  Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory

  115 shared

• Ivan D. Lima

  Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

  93 shared

• Corinne Le Quéré

  University of East Anglia

  75 shared

• Nicolas Gruber

  ETH Zurich

  69 shared

• David Schimel

  Jet Propulsion Laboratory

  59 shared

• David M. Glover

  57 shared

• Hugh W. Ducklow

  Columbia University

  57 shared

Education

• PhD, Joint Program in Oceanography

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  1991

• BA, Chemistry

  University of California San Diego

  1986

Similar researchers at University of Virginia

• Stephen S. Richh-170
• Gary Owensh-107
• Jarrod Martoh-101
• Jennifer L. Westh-93
• Edward H. Egelmanh-93