Welcome to the Collaborative Research Center TRR 181 ”Energy Transfers in Atmosphere and Ocean“
Discover
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.
Being Part of the Team: What TRR 181 PhDs say
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.
News
TRR 181 Newsletter "Energy Inflow" - May 2023

Our newsletter comes out every three months and includes information about the work done in our project and more. more ›
Report - Research Stay in Texas by Paul Holst

In April 2023, Paul Holst did a research stay at Texas A&M University, USA. more ›
Report - Spring School 2023

After we had such a wonderful time last year in Plön, we were happy that for this year the jouth hostel at Koppelsberg was again available for our RTG ENERGY Spring School from May 10-12. more ›
Upcoming Events
Workshop: Networking & Impostor
This workshop will take place June 6-7, 2023 more ›
TRR 181 Seminar "Derivation and application of a local diahaline Water Mass Transformation framework to the Baltic Sea" by Erika Henell (IOW)
The TRR 181 seminar is held every other week in the semester and as announced during semester break. The locations of the seminar changes between the three TRR181 locations, but is broadcasted online for all members of the TRR. more ›
Gender & Diversity: Open Task Group Meeting
All interested TRR members are invited to join the meeting of the Task Group Gender & Diversity. more ›
Latest Publications
Brecht, R., Bakels, L., Bihlo, A. & Stohl, A. (2023). Improving trajectory calculations by FLEXPART 10.4+ using single-image super-resolution. Geosci. Model Dev. 16(8), 2181–2192, doi: https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-2181-2023.
Shi, J., Stepanek, C., Sein, D., Streffing, J., & Lohmann, G. (2023). East Asian summer precipitation in AWI-CM3: Comparison with observations and CMIP6 models. International Journal of Climatology, 1– 16, doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.8075.
Pithan, F., Athanase, M., Dahlke, S., Sánchez-Benítez, A., Shupe, M. D., Sledd, A., Streffing, J., Svensson, G., & Jung, T. (2023). Nudging allows direct evaluation of coupled climate models with in situ observations: a case study from the MOSAiC expedition. Geosci. Model Dev. 16(7), 1857–1873, doi: https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-1857-2023.