The research is conducted by Thorsten Mauritsen, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Meteorology, and is a so-called ERC Consolidator Grant project entitled ”Reining in the upper bound on Earth’s Climate Sensitivities”. The project will start in September with a budget of 1 998 654 euros and will last for five years.
“The climate sensitivity is the most basic metric used to understanding Earth’s past changing climate, as well as predicting how it may change in the future. Almost any aspect of climate change is proportional to this number. For nearly 40 years the community has not been able to substantially narrow uncertainty in the climate sensitivity. Yet, in particular the risk that sensitivity might be high is worrying and at the same time poses a scientifically intriguing challenge”, says Thorsten Mauritsen.
His project will allow him to apply innovative methods to study high climate sensitivities.
“In particular I will expand my research by combining information from past warm climates that occurred millions of years ago with a process-understanding of how clouds might amplify global warming. My hope is that we can reduce the risk that the Earth’s climate sensitivity is very high, but of course if we fail to do so with five years of concentrated efforts then that is important information too.”
Originally, the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg was hosting the ERC contribution, but Thorsten Mauritsen chosed to move the grant to Stockholm University before the agreement was signed.
Research in spin electronics is supported
Another research project that receives funding within Horizon 2020 is “Boosting the scientific excellence and innovation capacity in Spintronics of the D. GHITU Institute of Electronic Engineering and Nanotechnologies of the Academy of Science of Moldova”.
The project is led by a research institute in Georgia and, besides Stockholm University, also has the University of Twente in Holland as partner. From Stockholm University, Vladimir Krasnov, Department of Physics, takes part with a budget of 233 140 euros. The project is in progress for three years, aiming to increase the scientific skills and innovation capacity of spin electronics, a technology that uses the spins of the electronics to store and process data.
