Contact persons:
Richard Blender, Prof. Klaus Fraedrich, Edilbert Kirk, Prof. Valerio Lucarini, Frank Lunkeit, Salvatore Pascale, Frank Sielmann
Within the Theoretical Meteorology a variety of topics is investigated.
Some examples are:
- Analysis of IPCC climate model output
- Thermodynamics of the climate systems
- Extreme events in data and models
- Hydrological cycle
- Deterministic and stochastic dynamical systems
- Response of complex systems to perturbations
- Modeling of atmosphere and ocean with models of different complexity
- Prediction of temperature and precipitation in Europe
- Investigation of tropical hurricanes
- Climate variability on short and long time scales
- Cyclone tracks and their connection to climate
- Reasons and mechanisms of instabilities in fluid flows
The results are relevant for basic research as well as for applications.
A selection of literature can be found on our website.
Master Theses
These are some specific themes for master theses:
Circulations and Thermodynamics of extraordinary climates of Earth-like planets with extreme obliquity and highly eccentric orbits
Many of recently discovered exoplanets move around their stars on highly eccentric orbits. Furthermore, while no terrestrial-planet analogue exists in the solar system, planets with steeply inclined spin axes may be common around nearby stars. By using the Planet Simulator, we propose to simulate such general circulations, explore the main features of their climate dynamics and link them to the basic thermodynamical properties (energetic, dissipation, efficiency, energy fluxes, entropy production.
(please contact Salvatore Pascale)
Dynamics and thermodynamics of an Aquaplanet
The student will investigate the dynamical and thermodynamical properties of a hypothetical planet entirely covered by water. The impact of changing the astronomical parameters and the opacity of the atmosphere on the large scale properties of the atmospheric circulation will be analyzed and discussed.
(please contact: V. Lucarini, E. Kirk, S. Pascale)
Gravity wave drag and angular momentum in a general circulation model
The student will explore the impact including in the GCM Plasim a parameterisation scheme for the gravity wave drag. The investigation will focus on the impacts of such a parameterisation on the angular momentum budget, the angular momentum cycle, and on the overall properties of general circulation of the atmosphere.
(please contact: K. Fraedrich, V. Lucarini, F. Lunkeit)
Impacts of climate change on the large scale Hydrological cycle
The student will investigate how global climate models describe the large scale hydrological budget over continents and in major river basin. First, the analysis will focus on pre-industrial control runs, then various scenarios of historical and projected climate change will be investigated.
(please contact: V. Lucarini, S. Pascale, S. Schubert)
Investigation of the dynamical properties of a 2-layer quasi-geostrophic atmospheric model
The student will analyse in detail the dynamical properties of a simple 2-layer quasi-geostrophic atmospheric model. This will include the investigation of the bifurcations leading to chaos due to changes in the forcing parameters, analysis of the impact of adding stochastic forcing into the system, and of the relevance of changes in the lower boundary conditions corresponding to the introduction of orographical features.
(please contact: V. Lucarini, J. Wouters, R. Blender)
In case that you are interested in another topic you found on our website, please contact us, possibly we can provide a made-to-measure topic for you.