Ben started his professional life as a scientist earning a PhD in ocean science in the late 1990s.  After his doctorate he moved to New York City and worked as a research scholar at Princeton University where he collaborated one of the most innovative and prestigious groups in the world.  He was then lured back to the University of New South Wales in Sydney and has built a research team that pursues understanding how climate change and our growing greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere impacts the ocean.

Ben is regarded as a leader in his field, an expert reviewer for the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change and has presented his science to Prime Ministers and boardrooms alike.

His research team has interests in developing new novel methods to understand the global flows of carbon dioxide into and out of the atmosphere. His team also collects new measurements from Antarctica to the Great Barrier Reef to understand the emerging risk associated with ocean acidification.

Some selected climate science publications include:

• Ben McNeil and R.J. Matear (2008): Southern Ocean acidification: A tipping point at 450-ppm atmospheric CO2, Proceedings of the National Academy of the United States of America, December 2, vol. 105 no. 48 18860-18864.
• Ben McNeil and R.J. Matear (2007): Climate Change Feedbacks on Oceanic pH. Tellus-B, 59B, 191-198.
• Ben McNeil, R.J. Matear, R.M. Key, J.L. Bullister and J.L. Sarmiento, (2003): Anthropogenic CO₂ uptake by the ocean based on the global chlorofluorocarbon dataset. Science, Vol 299, Jan 10, 235-239.