How is human-induced climate change causing extreme weather events? What impact do such events have on society? And how are biodiversity and climate change actually connected? These and other questions are addressed by the two new members of the Institute for Meteorology at Leipzig University. Marlene Kretschmer and Sebastian Sippel will also contribute their international expertise and skills to the Breathing Nature research network to better understand the environmental and societal impacts of climate change.
Junior Professor Marlene Kretschmer joins Leipzig from the University of Reading
“My work will focus on understanding and quantifying how human-induced climate change is causing extreme weather events. For example, I am interested in how storms, heat waves and droughts will change in the future, and how this will affect society and biodiversity. In this context, I am keen for my research to be even more interdisciplinary,” says Junior Professor Marlene Kretschmer, who comes to Leipzig from the University of Reading in the UK. Here, the 34-year-old will combine established physical methods with new machine learning approaches to explore the complex workings of the climate system and gain a better causal understanding of climate change and extreme events. Kretschmer studied mathematics at the Humboldt University of Berlin before completing her doctorate in climate physics at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the University of Potsdam. She then did a postdoc at the University of Reading in England and received a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship.
Junior Professor Sebastian Sippel leaves ETH Zurich for Leipzig
“Climate change affects the weather around the world every day, as shown by studies I have been involved in so far,” says Junior Professor Sebastian Sippel. The 35-year-old is particularly interested in the processes that lead to climate variability and extreme events, and the statistical description and modelling of such events. He will focus on the interactions between the atmosphere and terrestrial ecosystems that can amplify extreme events such as heat waves and droughts. Sebastian Sippel studied Geo-Ecology and Environmental Sciences at the University of Bayreuth followed by Environmental Change and Management at the University of Oxford in England. He completed his doctorate at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena and then spent some time at the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO) before joining the Climate Physics group at ETH Zurich.
