An FNRS (Belgium Fund for Scientific Research) research associate, Guy Munhoven centres his research on the modelisation of the role of continent-ocean-sediment interactions in the global carbon cycle. After a degree in Mathematical Sciences at the University of Liège, which was completed in 1989, this Luxembourg born researcher then followed up with studies in Astrophysics and Geophysics (Geophysics option), once again at the ULg, his Masters dissertation already looking at the modelisation of the oceanic carbon cycle, with the goal of studying the role of the ocean in the past and future evolution of CO2 in the atmosphere. Finally, he completed a Science Doctorate at the University of Liège in 1997, examining the influence of variations in continental weathering flows on the evolution of atmospheric CO2 over glacial-interglacial climate time scales. At the end of 1999 Guy Munhoven joined the associated Geology-Petrology-Geochemistry laboratories as well as the Laboratory of Planetary and Atmospheric Physics (LPAP) as an FNRS Research Associate. He had already previously worked at the LPAP as a research assistant on a number of occasions (1991-1994, 1995-1997). He also devoted a year, in the mid 1990s, to the Centre de Géochimie de la Surface (C.G.S./C.N.R.S.) at Strasbourg, in France, as a scholarship student on the Human Capital and Mobility programme. Finally Guy Munhoven has also worked as a postdoctoral research assistant at the Bristol Glaciology Centre (School of Geographical Sciences) at the University of Bristol, in England (1998-1999).

At the LPAP he has specialized in the study of the role of changes in continental weathering on the functioning of the atmosphere-ocean-sediment sub-system of the global carbon cycle and the impact of glacial-interglacial changes in terms of the organic carbon reservoir, which represents the terrestrial biosphere, on the evolution of the ocean-atmosphere sub-system of the global carbon cycle.

Selection of publications

ARCHER D., EBY M., BROVKIN V., RIDGWELL A., CAO L., MIKOLAJEWICZ U., CALDEIRA K., MATSUMOTO K., MUNHOVEN G., MONTENEGRO A., TOKOS K., Atmospheric Lifetime of Fossil Fuel Carbon Dioxide, Annu. Rev. Earth Planet, Sci. 37, 2009.

MUNHOVEN G., Longterm Neutralization of Anthropogenic CO2: The Role of Changing Basin-to-Shelf Partitioning of Carbonate Burial. Communication au Second Symposium on The Ocean in a High-CO2World, Musée Océanographique, Monaco, 6-9 octobre 2008.

KÖHLER P., FISCHER H., MUNHOVEN G., ZEEBE R. E., Quantitative interpretation of atmospheric carbon records over the last glacial termination, Global Biogeochem, Cycles, 19(4):GB4020, 2005.

MUNHOVEN G., Glacial-interglacial changes of continental weathering : estimates of the related CO2 and HCO3 flux variations and their uncertainties, Global Planet, Change, 33(2-3):155-176, 2002.

MUNHOVEN G., FRANCOIS L. M., Glacial-interglacial variability of atmospheric CO2 due to changing continental silicate rock weathering : A model study, J. Geophys. Res., 101(D16):21423-21437, 1996.