A study by Kang et al. proposes a new hypothesis for the anomalous slowdown in the rate of average global surface warming between 1979 and 2013. Often attributed to La Niña-like Pacific sea surface temperature trends, the scientists propose that an observed Southern Ocean cooling may have partially contributed to more negative global climate feedbacks, which reduce global warming, in that period. This effect should be accounted for in coupled atmosphere–ocean global climate models as it has an…
Prof. Sarah M. Kang joins the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) as a director on 15 August 2023. Prof. Kang joins the MPI-M from the Department of Urban and Environmental Engineering at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in South Korea, where she is a professor.
My long-term goal at the institute is to better understand how physical processes, particularly clouds and convection, determine the behavior and sensitivity of the climate system. Probably one of the most important influences on our global and regional climate is the planetary albedo. What is it that determines the distribution of clouds and thus the planetary albedo? How variable can cloud distributions be? How do clouds and moisture processes perturb the system? Modern simulation and…
Jule Radtke, postdoctoral researcher in the joint CLICCS working group on Drivers of Tropical Circulations of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and the University of Hamburg, was awarded the Early Career Scientist (ECS) Award at the joint Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project (CFMIP) and Global Atmospheric System Studies (GASS) 2023 conference in Paris. The award recognises her poster presentation entitled “Spatial Organization Affects the Pathway to Precipitation in Simulated…
Arctic ponds are important sources of methane emissions, and knowledge on their role in the future methane budget is lacking. A new study led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in collaboration with scientists from Universität Hamburg uses the first specialized model to investigate the response of pond methane emissions to global warming and suggests a substantial increase in emissions mainly driven by more productive and denser vegetation in a warmer world.
Can land receive more rain than the ocean? One might think that the obvious answer is “Yes”. But land and ocean are two components of a coupled system whose moisture fluxes are constrained by the conservation of water. Luca Schmidt and Cathy Hohenegger developed a conceptual model to investigate which atmospheric and land surface processes control the partitioning of precipitation between land and ocean in the tropics. They show that the efficiency of atmospheric moisture transport, determined…
The summary statement of the Berlin Summit for Earth Virtualization Engines (EVE) issues an impassioned call for international cooperation to advance science and technology so that “Everyone knows how climate and climate change affect them, and where this knowledge empowers them to act”. The Summit Statement, developed and signed by the summit’s participants, succinctly outlines how inadequacies and injustices in how climate information is developed and shared is leaving lives and livelihoods…
The Max Planck Institute for Meteorology is a partner in a new cooperation program of the Max Planck Society with the Indian Institutes for Science Education and Research (IISERs) to implement research stays for young talented master students from India at a Max Planck Institute.
A new study led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, in collaboration with scientists from the University of Hamburg, shows that future Arctic methane emissions may not depend on whether thawing permafrost soils dry out or not. They also found that the hydrological conditions of the permafrost soils not only have a local impact but could even influence methane emissions in the tropics.
In convective storms, the air that goes down is almost as important as the air that goes up. These convective downdrafts influence the termination of updrafts, near surface air properties, surface winds. However, predicting downdrafts under specific atmospheric conditions is difficult because their properties depend on several interrelated processes. In a new study led by Dr. Julia Windmiller, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and the Australian Research Council Centre of…
Never before in millions of years has our planet warmed so rapidly as today. A deeply concerning manifestation of this change is the world’s recent and repeated exposure to unprecedented weather events that has resulted in increasingly frequent, tragic, and expensive natural disasters. Record-breaking heatwaves, forest and bush fires, riverine and coastal floods, droughts, and sea level rise are now threatening our present and future. Communities worldwide expect timely and accurate guidance to…
Prof. Tiffany Shaw, internationally renowned atmospheric physicist at the University of Chicago, has been selected by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award in recognition of her outstanding research accomplishments.
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