Stefan Rahmstorf

Stefan Rahmstorf ( born February 22 1960 in Konstanz ) is a German oceanographer and climatologist. He is one of the lead authors of the published 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC ).

Professional career

Stefan Rahmstorf studied physics in Konstanz and Ulm and physical oceanography at the University of Wales, Bangor. In 1990 he received his doctorate at the Victoria University of Wellington in oceanography. According to other stations on the New Zealand Oceanographic Institute and the Institute of Marine Research in Kiel he has worked since 1996 at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research ( PIK). There he conducts research primarily to interactions between the oceans and global warming and natural climate changes. In 1998 his Habilitation at the University of Kiel. In 2000, he took over the chair of the Physics of the Oceans at Potsdam University, where he lectures on the topics of paleoclimatology and ocean circulation. In addition, he provides online video lectures at in the context of the Virtual Academy Sustainability in the University of Bremen e -learning program.

Rahmstorf is a member of the Academia Europæa and the Scientific Advisory Board of National Geographic Germany. In 2010 he was elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. He was also from 2004 to 2013 Member of the Scientific Advisory Council on Global Change ( WBGU).

Rahmstorf is author or co - author of over 70 scientific publications in international journals, including more than 20 in Nature, Science and PNAS.

Work

After initial work on gravitational physics ( general relativity ) Rahmstorf became internationally known in the 1990s through a series of studies on the stability of the North Atlantic Current, which provided an explanatory hypothesis for the abrupt glacial climate change. In 1998 he was involved in the first successful ocean-atmosphere simulation of the climate at the peak of the last ice age. In 1999 he published scenarios about possible future changes to the currents in the North Atlantic due to global warming.

Since 2007, Rahmstorf has researched mainly to changes in sea level in past and future. Since 2009 he has also been involved in several studies that corroborate the connection between extreme weather and climate change.

Rahmstorf committed publicly to the topic global warming. He is a co-founder of the world famous Real Climate blog, which has been ranked among the top five science blogs in 2006 by the journal Nature and counted by Time Magazine in 2008 among the 15 best environmental sites. Rahmstorf is also co-founder of the German environmental blogs KlimaLounge. The Air Lounge won the 3rd prize in the election for Science Blog of the Year 2013.

Rahmstorf has, partly with colleagues, four popular science books written about weather, climate and oceans, some of which have been translated into several languages. His latest book, Cloud, Wind & Weather (DVA 2011), was elected in February 2012 on the Germany radio -best list for young readers and chosen by the German Environment Foundation to the " Environment Book of the Year".

Rahmstorf has often voiced in the media on climate issues. His published in the daily press articles on climate issues are occasionally marketed internationally via Project Syndicate. In the environmental magazine Zeo2 he has been writing since the first edition of a regular column. The Financial Times described him in 2009 as a leading climatologists. The award of the Environmental Media Awards at Rahmstorf 2007 was honored in detail in the ARD issues of the day.

As a member of the WBGU Rahmstorf was involved in several reports, which have broad discussions triggered, among other things, to the seas (2006), bioenergy (2008) and The Social Contract for a Great Transformation ( 2011). Thus, advised the bioenergy opinion of a promotion of biofuels, which contributed to the subsequent reversal of EU bioenergy policy.

Awards

Publications

• Greenhouse effect and climate change. Mayer Jena and Erlangen, Marloffstein 2001, ISBN 3-925978-71-2.
• Hans Joachim Schellnhuber: climate change. Diagnosis, prognosis, therapy. Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-50866-9.
• Katherine Richardson: How are threatening the oceans? Biological and physical aspects. Fischer -Taschenbuch -Verlag, Frankfurt 2007, ISBN 978-3-596-17277-1.
• David Archer: The Climate Crisis: An Introductory Guide to Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-521-73255-0.
• Clouds, wind and weather. with pictures of Klaus Ensikat. Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 2011, ISBN 978-3-8389-0226-5. Elected by the German Environment Foundation for Environmental Book of the Month January 2012.

Chapters in Books (selection)

• Thomas F. Stocker: Thermohaline Circulation: Past Changes and Future Surprises? In: Will Steffen, Angelina Sanderson, Peter Tyson, Jill Jäger, Pamela Matson, Berrien Moore III, Frank Oldfield, Katherine Richardson, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, BL Turner II, Robert J. Wasson: Global change and the earth System. A planet under pressure. Springer, Berlin and others 2004, ISBN 3-540-40800-2, pp. 240-241 (PDF, 402KB )
• Frank Sirocko: Modes of Oceanic and Atmospheric Circulation falling on the Quaternary. In: Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Paul J. Crutzen, William C. Clark, Martin Claussen and Hermann Held (ed.): Earth System Analysis for Sustainability. The MIT Press, 2004, ISBN 0-262-19513-5, pp. 129-142 (PDF, 188 kB)
• Global climate change: What can we learn from the past? In: Gerd Winter (ed.): Multilevel Governance of Global Environmental Change. Perspectives from Science, Sociology and the Law. Cambridge University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-521-85261-7, pp. 67-76.
• Sea-level rise. In: Michael Müller, Ursula Fuentes and Harald Kohl ( ed.): The UN World Climate Report. Reports of a resistible disaster. Kiepenheuer and Malevich, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-462-03960-3, pp. 190-194.
• Anthropogenic Climate Change: Revisiting the Facts. In: Ernesto Zedillo (ed.): Global Warming: Looking Beyond Kyoto. Brookings Institution Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-8157-9715-9 (PDF, 467 kB)

Article

Sole authorship in Nature and Science:

• Bifurcations of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation in response to changes in the hydrological cycle. In: Nature. Volume 378, 1995, pp. 145-149, doi: 10.1038/378145a0 (PDF, 695 kB)
• Response to Comments on " A Semi- Empirical Approach to Projecting Future Sea- Level Rise". In: Science. Volume 317, 2007, p 1866d (PDF, 159)