Julian Krüger

Department Climate Variability
Group Earth System Modelling and Predictions
Position Postdoc
phone +49 40 41173-431
Email julian.krueger@mpimet.mpg.de
Room B 204

About Me

Research topics 

  • North Atlantic SST variability 
  • European heat events
  • Warm Conveyor Belt activity 
  • High-resolution climate modeling 
  • Forecast skill assessment

My research involves the investigation of various driving mechanisms for European heat events. A particular focus is on the influence of surface temperatures in the subpolar North Atlantic. I examine observational and climate model data to discover potential links and patterns between North Atlantic SST variability and European climate. This includes dynamical and thermodynamical processes in the atmosphere such as the Warm Conveyor Belt Activity, which is sensitive to ocean surface temperatures in the North Atlantic. A better understanding of these processes in and over the North Atlantic helps to improve the predictability of heat events over Europe.
My current and future postdoctoral research involves investigating the atmospheric response to mesoscale eddies in the North Atlantic Ocean in the frame of the project OceanWeather of the Hans-Ertel-Centre for weather research. Using the ICON climate model and different horizontal resolutions, the influence of sea surface temperatures on the atmospheric circulation can be better assessed.

since 04/2024       Post-Doc in the group Earth System Modeling and Prediction, Department Climate Variability, Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg    

01/24 - 02/24       Post-Doc in the group Climate Extremes, Research Unit Marine Meteorology, GEOMAR, Kiel

2020 - 2023          Dr. rer. nat. - PhD in the group Climate Extremes, Research Unit Marine Meteorology, GEOMAR, Kiel

2017 - 2020          Master of Science - Master studies “Climate Physics” at the Christian-Albrechts-University, Kiel

2014 - 2017          Bachelor of Science - Bachelor studies “Physics of the Earth System” at the Christian-Albrechts-University, Kiel

Krüger, J., Kjellsson, J., Lohmann, K., Matei, D., Kedzierski, R. P.: Improved European heat event simulation in eddy-resolving climate models, Comm. Earth & Environment, 2026, DOI: 10.1038/s43247-025-03145-9

Müller, W. A., Lorenz, S., Pham, T. V., Schneidereit, A., Brokopf, R., Brovkin, V., Brüggemann, N., Chegini, F., Dommenget, D., Fröhlich, K., Früh, B., Gayler, V., Haak, H., Hagemann, S., Hanke, M., Ilyina, T., Jungclaus, J., Köhler, M., Korn, P., Kornblueh, L., Kroll, C. A., Krüger, J., Castro-Morales, K., Niemeier, U., Pohlmann, H., Polkova, I., Potthast, R., Riddick, T., Schlund, M., Stacke, T., Wirth, R., Yu, D., and Marotzke, J.: The ICON-based Earth System Model for climate predictions and projections (ICON XPP v1.0), Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 9385–9415, 2025, DOI: 10.5194/gmd-18-9385-2025. 

Schuster, M., Krüger, J., Lueg R., Physical climate risk: Stock price reactions to the historically most extreme European and United States heat waves since 1979PloS one, Vol. 20, No. 1, p. e0318166, 2025, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0318166.

Krüger, J., Kjellsson, J., Pilch Kedzierski, R., Claus, M. , Connecting North Atlantic SST Variability to European Heat Events over the Past Decades, Tellus A: Dynamic Meteorology and Oceanography , Vol. 75, No. 1, p. 358-374, 2023, DOI: 10.16993/tellusa.3235.