Climate

understanding & protecting

In order to understand the dynamics, causes and consequences of the climate crisis, we need to understand the climate as a complex interplay between the atmosphere, ocean, ice and biosphere. The ocean plays a key role in this: it stores and transports heat and carbon, buffers changes in the climate system - but can also amplify them.

Society's need for knowledge about sea level rise, extreme weather and changes in global ocean circulation is constantly growing. Marine, polar and climate research is therefore high-profile areas of the University of Bremen.

At MARUM, researchers study both today's climate and climate changes in the Earth's history. Using models, climate reconstructions and long-term observations, they analyze the energy exchange between the atmosphere and the ocean, the dynamics of Atlantic circulation and the role of glaciers in sea level rise.

Tropical coral reefs serve as archives for climate changes over years to centuries. MARUM uses citizen science to quantify regional ocean warming in recent years and decades. The linking of ocean, atmosphere and ice models helps to better understand future climate changes. Another focus is on the investigation of methods for the long-term storage of CO₂ in the seabed, which can counteract climate change.

In the Climate research field, we work on an interdisciplinary basis to find answers to these questions:

How do natural fluctuations and human influences affect tropical climate phenomena?
What were the interactions between climate and biodiversity in past geological eras?
How can knowledge from Earth's history be used for climate projections?

Sampling of a sediment core; Photo: MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen; V. Diekamp — Sampling of a sediment core obtained on Expedition 381 as part of the International IODP Program. The analysis of climate archives, such as sediments and tropical coral reefs, allows us to reconstruct climate changes over decades to millions of years.

Participating Research Groups

Selection of current research projects

PalMod

From the last interglacial to the Anthropocene - Modeling a complete glacial cycle

Funded by BMBF

SFB Energytransfers in Atmosphere And Ocean

In the Collaborative Research Center, researchers investigate the interaction of turbulence, waves and eddies in the ocean and the atmosphere

Funded by the DFG

AIMS³

Alternative scenarios, innovative technologies and monitoring approaches for the storage of carbon dioxide in oceanic crust

A joint project of the DAM research mission CDRmare

Current news

Showing 57-60 of 128 items.

A coral reef in the northern Red Sea. Photo: MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen, T.Felis

Nov 29, 2023

Tropical climate extremes and coral reefs

Researchers from the DFG Priority Program "Tropical Climate Variability & Coral Reefs" (SPP 2299) are meeting at the University of Bremen this week for ...

Analyzed sediment core from the Caribbean Sea. The inset shows a foraminifera species called Globigerinoides ruber (white), which was extracted from the sediment samples and used to reconstruct past changes in tropical temperature and salinity. Photo: A. Zhuravleva and T. Boeschen, GEOMAR

Nov 3, 2023

How salt from the Caribbean affects our climate

Past cold periods such as the Little Ice Age were associated with reduced strength of North Atlantic currents and increased surface salinity in the ...

Bronwen Konecky at Washington University in St. Louis (far right) examines a core of lake sediment from Lake Sibinacocha, Peru. Photo: Thomas Malkowicz, Washington University in St. Louis

Nov 2, 2023

Study links changes in global water cycle to higher temperatures

It’s a multi-billion dollar question: What will happen to water as temperatures continue to rise? There will be winners and losers with any change that ...

An international team of scientists studied the natural multi-centennial climate variability between 23,000 and 19,000 years ago; climate model and paleo data show that this variability was particularly pronounced in the subpolar North Atlantic. The photo shows sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. Photo: MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen; V. Diekamp

Nov 2, 2023

How a climate model can illustrate and explain ice-age climate variability

During the last ice age, the last glacial maximum about 20,000 years ago, the climate in the North Atlantic underwent much greater multi-centennial ...