Currently I am investigating the global methane cycle during the last glacial in the context of the Palmod     project, with a special focus on the terrestrial emissions from wetlands, fires and termites.

Apart from methane, my research focus is on the accumulation of carbon in wetland and permafrost soils. As part of this research I have implemented a model of sub-gridscale wetland hydrology, peat accumulation, and CH₄ emissions in the DGVM LPJ, as well as in JSBACH, the land surface model of the MPI-ESM.

I am also involved in the Global Carbon Project Methane Assessment and in the PAGES C-PEAT network.

Previously, I was a senior research associate at the Climatic Research Unit, where I collaborated with Tim Osborn and Keith Briffa in an investigation of the climate of the little ice age.
We performed a sensitivity study with the GCM HadCM3, which we forced by various candidate mechanisms (negative NAO, decrease in radiative forcing, slowdown of the MOC), in order to find out how the climate produced by these mechanisms compares to palaeodata.

My PhD at the Potsdam-Institute for Climate Impact Research was on the detection of critical thresholds in the climate system, as well as the consideration of uncertainty in the integrated assessment of climate change by stochastic methods.

A short list of things I'm interested in:

• The methane cycle
• The land carbon cycle, focusing on long-term C storage in wet or frozen ecosystems
• Past climate
• The co-evolution of the biosphere and climate
• Vegetation traits
• Nonlinear thresholds in the climate system, in ecosystems or in the socioeconomic system
• Indicators for thresholds: Quantities, available from measurement data, that allow a prediction of the distance to the threshold
• consideration of uncertainty
• nonlinear, conceptual models of the climate system
• stochastic dynamical systems, as applied to the climate system

I read two classes:

The dynamical palaeoclimatology course in the Meteorology and Integrated Climate System Science MSc programmes.

Terrestrial Ecosystem Modelling in the Integrated Climate System Science MSc programme.

Lecture slides can be found here. The page is password protected, please contact me for access.