Collaborative Research Center TRR 181 ”Energy Transfers in Atmosphere and Ocean“

Combined effort for consistent ocean and atmosphere models.

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Interdisciplinary research for a common goal

Joint work of oceanographers, meteorologists and mathematicians.

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Strengthens northern German Collaboration

Participation of scientists from Hamburg, Bremen and Rostock.

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Welcome to the Collaborative Research Center TRR 181 ”Energy Transfers in Atmosphere and Ocean“

About the project

Energy does not vanish

The energy of a closed system is steady. It is not lost but rather converted into other forms, such as when kinetic energy is transferred into thermal energy or vice versa heat results in a force.

However, this fundamental principle of natural science is often still a problem for climate research. For example, in case of the calculation of ocean currents, where small-scale vortices as well as mixing processes they induce need to be considered, without fully understanding where the energy for their creation originates from. This is similar in the atmosphere, the only difference being that air is moving instead of water. Again, local turbulences can drive larger movements or vice versa waves on a larger scale can disintegrate into small structures.

All these processes are important for the Earth’s climate and determine how temperatures will rise in the future.

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Being Part of the Team: What TRR 181 PhDs say

  • What did you enjoy most as part of the TRR team?

    "I really enjoyed our Winter Schools, as a platform to communicate science, to acquire soft skills, but also to simply chat or to engage in activities with members of the TRR-family." - Florian Noethen

  • What did you enjoy most as part of the TRR team?

    "Being part of such an interdisciplinary and multicultural project is what I liked most since it allowed me to expand my scientific horizons." - Evridiki Chrysagi

  • What did you enjoy most as part of the TRR team?

    "I found the most enjoyable of being part of TRR team is that the TRR strongly supports in finance for PhDs going to both inland and abroad conferences." - Jen-Ping Peng

  • What did you enjoy most as part of the TRR team?

    "Winter Schools and Retreats were the best part provided me with an opportunity to improve my different skills besides academic ones." - Gökce Tuba Masur

  • What did you enjoy most as part of the TRR team?

    "What I enjoy most in the TRR is the interdisciplinary. It is a great opportunity to gather different opinions from various fields for similar problems. This is especially interesting for me as a PhD student who is often very focused on one own narrow discipline." - Jonas Löb

Existing climate models show energetic and mathematical inconsistencies which may lead to fundamental errors in climate forecasts. Now is the right time to combine recent efforts in Meteorology, Oceanography and applied Mathematics and to go new ways.

Prof. Carsten Eden, Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability at Universität Hamburg, Speaker of TRR181 

Latest Publications

  • Listowski, C., Stephan, C.C., Le Pichon, A., Hauchecorne, A., Kim, Y.-H., Achatz, U. & Bölöni, G. (2024). Stratospheric gravity waves impact on infrasound transmission losses across the International Monitoring System. Pure Appl. Geophys., accepted.

  • Oliver, M. & Tiofack Kenfack, M. A. (2024). Deterministic and stochastic surrogate models for a slowly driven fast oscillator. SIAM J. Appl. Dyn. Syst., in press.

  • Schmitt, M., Pham, H.T., Sarkar, S., Klingbeil, K. & Umlauf, L. (2024). Diurnal Warm Layers in the ocean: Energetics, non-dimensional scaling, and parameterization. J. Phys. Oceanogr., accepted.

Participating Institutions

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