Modeling Continuum Climate Variability: Atmosphere, Ocean, Land, and Ice (Max Planck Fellow)
Group leader: 
Prof. Dr. Klaus Fraedrich
Email: 
klaus.fraedrich@zmaw.de
Phone: +49-40-423838-7565
Fax: +49-40-423838-5066
Group Members:
Eileen Dahms
E-Mail: 
eileen.dahms@zmaw.de
Tel.: +49-40-423838-5069
Research Objectives
Modeling continuum climate variability: Atmosphere, ocean, land, and ice
This research group is formed as part of the Max Planck Fellow Program to strengthen the cooperation between Max Planck Society and universities. It is led by Klaus Fraedrich, University of Hamburg.
Our main interest is to model the continuum climate variability by using the climate models available at University of Hamburg and MPI-M. Climate variability exists at all timescales and climate processes are intimately coupled, so that understanding variability at any one timescale requires some understanding of the whole. Without solar variability, interacting land-ice and vegetation components, complex ocean-atmosphere climate models (ECHAM5/MPIOM, HadCM3, and a CSIRO-AOGCM) can reproduce the continuum variability quantitatively up to millennia. We aim to extend the spectral continuity beyond millennia into the ultra-low frequency domain, with particular interest in conceptual and numerical modeling, which includes continental ice sheet dynamics; the main tool is the climate model - Planet Simulator.
The Planet Simulator enables low-cost numerical experiments for understanding the dynamics of the climates of the Earth and Earth-like planets in the solar system. By using Planet Simulator together with the more complex earth system model in MPI-M, we also aim to assess the role of different climate compartments, in particular the dynamics of land-ice shields, and their interactions, to gain insight into the climatic mechanisms governing continuum climate fluctuations.
Related Publications
Blender, R., K. Fraedrich, and F. Sienz, 2008: Extreme event return times in long-term memory processes near 1/f. Nonlin. Processes Geophys., 15, 557-565. (PDF)
Zhu. X., J. Jungclaus, 2008: Interdecadal Variability of the meridional overturning circulation as an ocean internal mode. Climate Dynamics, DOI: 10.1007/s00382-008-0383-9. (PDF)
Wang, G., T. Jiang, R. Blender, and K. Fraedrich, 2008: Yangtze 1/f discharge variability and the interacting river-lake system. Journal of Hydrology, 351, 230-237. (PDF)
Blender, R. and K. Fraedrich, 2006: Long term memory of the hydrological cycle and river runoffs in China in a high resolution climate model. Intern. J. of Climatol., 26, 1547-1565. (PDF)
Blender, R., K. Fraedrich, and B. Hunt, 2006: Millennial climate variability: GCM-simulation and Greenland ice cores. Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L04710. (PDF)
Zhu, X., K. Fraedrich, and R. Blender, 2006: Variability regimes of simulated Atlantic MOC. Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L21603. (PDF)
Fraedrich, K., H. Jansen, E. Kirk, U. Luksch, and F. Lunkeit, 2005: The Planet Simulator: Towards a user friendly model. Meteorol. Zeitschrift, 14, 299-304. (PDF)
Jiang, T., Q. Zhang, R. Blender, and K. Fraedrich, 2005: Yangtze delta floods and droughts of the last millennium: Abrupt changes and long term memory. Theor. and Appl. Climatol., 82, 131-141. (PDF)
Blessing, S., K. Fraedrich, and F. Lunkeit, 2004: Climate Diagnostics by Adjoint Modelling: A Feasibility Study. in "The Climate in Historical Times. Towards a Synthesis of Holocene Proxy Data and Climate Models", eds. H. Miller, J. F. W. Negendank, G. Flöser, H. von Storch, H. Fischer, G. Lohmann, and T. Kumke, Springer-Verlag, 383-396. (PDF)
Fraedrich, K., U. Luksch, and R. Blender, 2004: A 1/f-model for long time memory of the ocean surface temperature, Phys. Rev. E., 70, 037301-(1-4). (PDF)
Blender, R., and K. Fraedrich, 2003: Long time memory in global warming simulations. Geophys. Res. Lett., 30, 14, 1769-1772. (PDF)
Fraedrich, K., and R. Blender, 2003: Scaling of atmosphere and ocean temperature correlations in observations and climate models, Phys. Rev. Lett., 90, 108501(1-4). (PDF)
Fraedrich, K., 2002: Fickian diffusion and Newtonian cooling: A concept for noise induced climate variability with long-term memory? Stochastics and Dynamics, 2, 403-412. (PDF)