One of the hot topics in climate research is the evolution of the global mean temperature of the last several thousand years, the period from the so-called early and mid-Holocene, some 9000 to 8000 years ago, to the late Holocene, the time where we live in. Geological reconstructions of the global mean annual temperature evolution during this…

In two recent studies, scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) analyzed the feedback between CO₂ and climate using Earth System models (ESM) in the Climate Modelling Intercomparison project, phase 6 (CMIP6). The authors Prof. Victor Brovkin, Dr. Tatiana Ilyina, Prof. Julia Pongratz, and Dr. Thomas Raddatz found that the…

Dr Tobias Becker, scientist in the department „The Atmosphere in the Earth System“ at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M), won a prestigious Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. From October 2020, he will conduct research for two years together with Dr Irina Sandu at the European Centre for…

A group of scientists mostly from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) studied the representation of tropical precipitation by models participating in the Coupled Modelling Intercomparison Projects (CMIP). Their analysis of output from models spanning twenty years of development over three CMIP phases, found little general improvement…

A new study in Climate Dynamics by Andreas Lang and Uwe Mikolajewicz from the Department "The Ocean in the Earth System" at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) shows that the intensity of extreme storm surges on the German North Sea coast is projected to increase under rising greenhouse gas emissions. With the help of numerical…

Researchers around the globe are using numerical climate models in an attempt to find answers to the question: How would global warming change our world? Earth’s climate is extremely complex and difficult to model. Each climate model has its specific strengths and weaknesses. In order to estimate the bandwidth of possible future climate…

Dres Maria Rugenstein and Jeremy Caves Rugenstein came to the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) as Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellows in early 2019. Now they will take on professorships at Colorado State University, USA. Maria Rugenstein will be an Assistant Professor in the Department of Atmospheric Science, and Jeremy Caves…

Scientists at the Universität Hamburg and the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) are measuring a weather phenomenon that we all know well, especially these days: thunderstorms. The weather is warm and nice, and suddenly a thunderstorm pops in the sky and produces extreme downpours for a brief instant. During such events, the air…

The International Max Planck Research School on Earth System Modelling (IMPRS-ESM) is a PhD programme jointly run by the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) and Universität Hamburg since 2002. Recently Prof Martin Claussen, Director and Head of the PhD programme at MPI-M, and Dr Antje Weitz, Coordinator of the IMPRS-ESM, celebrated the…

A new study in Nature Climate Change, led by Paul Keil of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, uses climate model simulations to identify additional drivers of the so-called North Atlantic warming hole.