A time series of a climate variable often resembles a random sequence. This apparent randomness is generally attributed to the unpredictable and chaotic nature of dynamical systems. So far, there exists no theory about how a climate model, as such a purely deterministic dynamical system, can produce random solutions. In a recent publication, Jin-Song von Storch shows that randomness, and with that irreversibility, in solutions of a purely deterministic dynamical system emerge from a hitherto…
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology shed light on what may happen if the frozen soils thaw in response to global heating. Landscapes in the Arctic and subarctic zone are often very wet with water saturated soils and an extensive lake- and wetland cover shaping the moisture and energy exchange with the atmosphere. To some extent, the abundance of water is caused by the presence of permafrost, that is those parts of the ground that remain perennially frozen. Such soil layers…
The Max Planck Institute for Meteorology is continuing its partnership with the Indian Institutes for Science Education and Research (IISERs) as part of the Max Planck Society's cooperation program launched in 2023 to enable research stays at Max Planck Institutes for talented Master's students from India. The aim of the program is to promote early interaction between Max Planck Institutes and outstanding Indian students. Both parties can get to know each other better through a research stay…
Professor Stephen Sitch, a world-leading scientist from the University of Exeter, UK, scientist with outstanding achievements in terrestrial carbon cycle science has received the prestigious Research Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. During the years 2024 – 2025 he will stay for several months at Climate Dynamics department of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M), hosted by the research group led by Prof. Victor Brovkin.
The Earth is rapidly warming in response to human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. The warming is however not uniform, with some areas of the Earth warming much faster than others. The tropical Pacific Ocean is an area that is rather unique: While the western tropical Pacific has been warming rapidly as predicted, the eastern tropical Pacific experienced a slight cooling in recent decades, together with a strengthening of the trade winds – similar to a phenomenon called “La Niña”. However, the…
Dr. Chao Li has been awarded a Distinguished Guest Professorship at the prestigious Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), a leading scientific institution in China. This prestigious award is granted for a period of three years and recognizes Dr. Li's outstanding contributions to researching future climate change and climate internal variability in response to anthropogenic CO2 forcing, as well as examining plausible future climate scenarios. The…
A delegation of high-level representatives, led by Prof. Dr. Renhe Zhang, the former Vice-President of Fudan University, visits the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) and the German Climate Computing Centre (DKRZ) on 21-22 May 2024.
In a new study, Dr. Claudia Timmreck, Dr. Dirk Olonscheck and Dr. Shih-Wei Fang from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, together with colleagues from the University of Edinburgh and ISAC-Lecce, show that seasonal and ensemble mean patterns of near-surface temperature and precipitation anomalies are distinguishable and linearly scalable for sulfur emissions from 10 to 40 Tg sulfur (S) if their forcing pattern is similar.
The northern hemisphere climate during the last glacial period (about 65,000-15,000 years before present) was dominated by two prominent signals of glacial climate variability, known as Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles and Heinrich events. The episodic Heinrich events, defined by an enhanced ice discharge from the Laurentide Ice Sheet, tend to coincide with cold phases of the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles, which are periodic and abrupt warming and cooling cycles. This suggests a close connection, but the…
Have you ever wondered how much a single measurement campaign matters when estimating the ocean's carbon sink? In a study published recently in Scientific Reports, Jaqueline Behncke and Peter Landschützer from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology together with Toste Tanhua from GEOMAR show that data from a single sailboat have a significant impact on estimates of the ocean carbon sink. In the South Polar Ocean, where few measurement campaigns take place, CO2 measurements from a single…
When a snowball Earth deglaciates, the planet transitions rapidly into a hot "supergreenhouse" climate that persists for a hundred thousand years or more - according to the classic snowball Earth theory. In a new publication, MPI-M scientists Lennart Ramme, Tatiana Ilyina and Jochem Marotzke show that this concept is too simplified, as the ocean transformations after a snowball Earth drive strong carbon cycle dynamics, which alter the evolution of atmospheric CO2. In fact, scenarios ranging…
Do climate models realistically represent the coupling between Earth’s surface warming and the top-of-the atmosphere radiation? Dirk Olonscheck, research scientist at Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, and Maria Rugenstein, Assistant Professor at Colorado State University, show that models systematically underestimate the observed coupling strength. Thereby, the models accumulate too much energy in the atmosphere, an effect that contributes to a possibly too high climate sensitivity of some…
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