The runaway success of the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) at the Biological Station for Research has led to a major extension of the programme.

Once again, the waters off Bermuda have proved to be ideal for an ongoing scientific programme which will provide the underpinnings for predicting future causes and effects of global change.

Oceanographer Dr. Dennis Hansell has just joined the Station's research staff as co-ordinator of the BATS programme with Dr. Tony Michaels who has been the primary scientist on the project.

Dr. Hansell's particular expertise lies in the measurement of dissolved organic carbon and nitrogen. He brings with him a wealth of experience that is in itself global, since he wrote his dissertation on nitrogen cycling in the Arctic Ocean at the University of Alaska.

BATS is one of two stations (Hawaii is the other) set up in 1988 to accommodate the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS). This entails monitoring the oceans' carbon and nitrogen cycle and how they may affect the climate.

There has been increasing worry about the "greenhouse effect'' -- the warming of the earth's climate due to pollutants -- with the past century of world-wide industrialisation and over-population being held responsible for much of the vast build-up of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide.

Dr. Hansell, who has been in Bermuda for just two months, says that as this man-made build-up has occurred on top of naturally changing levels, it has been hard for scientists to differentiate between the two.

"This has left a lot of room for debate as to whether global warming is therefore actually taking place. So politicians have seized on that and used it to suit their own economic and political agendas,'' he says.

Scientists, he explains, have had no problem in estimating how much carbon dioxide has been released into the atmosphere, but it has now been established that only about half of what man has added to the atmosphere is actually there. This leads to the fascinating hunt for the other half.

Research indicates that the oceans, which cover 75 percent of the world's surface, may be acting as a huge sink, or repository, for carbon dioxide. As millions of microbe-sized plants floating about on the surfaces of these waters are all part of the ecological food chain, the implications could be significant.

BATS Station, 45 miles off the Island and within easy reach by R/V Weatherbird II , is a very good place to study what is occurring in oceans far away from Bermuda but which share similarities in that they are nutrient-poor (i.e.

large fishing grounds are nutrient-rich).

"Most of the oceans are, in fact, like Bermuda, biologically quiet. The limitation for study in most places is that you have to go out on a ship and it turns into a big expedition. But Bermuda acts as a mother ship to our small research vessel and we can go back and forth quite freely, as often as we need.'' This turns out to be an average of twice a month, although the team makes extra trips when storms or hurricanes require special study of ocean response to these kinds of disturbances.

Dr. Hansell acknowledges that Bermuda's steady climate is helpful for year-round work, but emphasises that it is the Island's location, surrounded by deep water, that makes it invaluable as a research centre.

"We can respond to events very rapidly here and that can be important, as ocean disturbances -- even the eruption of volcanoes, or earthquakes a long way off -- could stimulate plant life, but on the other hand, could kill them!'' BATS has evolved from the much older Hydrostation S, situated about 13 miles off St. David's, which is the world's oldest site for the recording of ocean salinity, temperature and dissolved oxygen. Until BATS was instigated, long-term studies were rare, largely because of the high costs involved. Now the JGOFS programme represents an encouraging advance in terms of financial and personnel investment.

"Tony Knap (Biological Station Director) wrote the proposal to keep this study going, as it was due to terminate after five years, under the terms of the funding arrangements with the National Science Foundation,'' says Dr.

Hansell.

Admitting he is enjoying working in Bermuda's mild climate, Dr. Hansell had his share of "the tough life'', when he spent four years as a graduate research assistant at the University of Alaska.

"It was very cold,'' he laughs, remembering the mornings when his part-time job in an oil refinery found him with ice crystals forming inside his nose.

"In the winter, there was only about three hours of twilight, which could be a bit depressing, especially when the temperature hit a low of minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit.'' But he also found it an exciting time, living in a still wild corner of the world, amongst Eskimo villages, where there were no roads and no boat services and where scientists working on the ice had to hire Eskimos with guns to protect them from prowling polar bears.

Dr. Hansell, who was most recently awarded a year's research fellowship at the University of Washington, and undertook post doctoral studies at the University of California at Santa Cruz, has also received several academic honours, including the Outstanding Doctoral Student in the Institute of Marine Science at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, in 1989.

IN THE LAB -- Oceanographer Dr. Dennis Hansell in his lab at the Bermuda Biological Station. Dr. Hansell is studying how the oceans may affect global climate change.

HARD AT WORK in the lab is Dr. Dennis Hansell, with the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study. (BATS).