The Director's Research Group aims at understanding terrestrial biogeophysical feedback processes in the Earth's climate system. To this end, our research focusses on the questions of how the interaction between atmosphere, vegetation, land, and ocean has developed in the past and how this interaction causes accelerated changes into new climate and ecosystem states. These topics are addressed by considering palaeoclimate change and exploring possible changes in the future.
Snapshots of simulated global vegetation pattern, so-called biomes, derived from an MPI-ESM model simulation of the last 8000 years (Brovkin et al., 2019) using a biomisation tool developed in this group (Dallmeyer et al., 2019). Most striking is the widespread vegetation in the Sahara at 6000 BCE. The "Green Sahara Period" ended between 4000 BCE and 2000 BCE, earlier in the north than in the south and earlier in the west than in the east (Dallmeyer et al., 2020). In some regions the expansion of the Sahara occurred rapidly, much faster than the subtle, rather linear change in the forcing of the climate system (Claussen et al., 2017).
Topics (visit the personal web pages to learn more) | ||
Jürgen Bader | Scientist | Holocene climate variability |
Martin Claussen | Director | Global climate - vegetation interaction in past and present day climate |
Roberta D'Agostino | Postdoc | Holocene tropical dynamics |
Anne Dallmeyer | Scientist | Paleo vegetation dynamics |
Mateo Duque Villegas | PhD candidate | The dynamics of past African Humid Periods |
Pinhsin Hu | PhD candidate | Trait-based modeling of plant functional diversity and its interaction with the climate |
Leonore Jungandreas | PhD candidate | Interaction between deep convection and land surface in Holocene North Africa |
Nora Farina Specht | PhD candidate | Saharan mega lakes and wetlands and their interaction with vegetation and climate |
Josephine Wong | PhD candidate | Long term interaction between vegetation and soil hydrology |
Sylvia Houston | Assistant |