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Sustainability and Climate Risks
Research UnitSustainability and Climate Risks

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MSc and PhD topics

For inspiration of possible MSc and PhD Topics, please find here an overview of the ongoing topics of our MSc and PhD students as well as suggestions for open topics. We welcome any ideas for MSc Theses in the scope of the group's work and expertise!

Ongoing MSc Topics:

  • Noah Ritter: "Separating source of uncertainty of future climate extremes" (supervision by Dr. Lukas Brunner and Prof. Dr. Jana Sillmann)
  • Yigit Uckan: "Link between blocking in different locations and temperature extremes" (supervision by Dr. Lukas Brunner and Prof. Dr. Jana Sillmann)
  • Meredith Avison: "Seasonal Predictability of Agriculturally Relevant Compound Drought and Heat Events in the Central United States" (supervision by Dr. Leonard Borchert and Prof. Dr. Jana Sillmann)

Ongoing PhD Topics:

  • Vidur Mithal: "Earth system modelling of extreme climate impacts on agriculture" (principal supervision by Dr. Leonard Bochert, co-supervision by Prof. Dr. Jana Sillmann)
  • Aiswarya Pavanan: "The impact of extreme climate events on human capital" (principal supervision by Prof. Dr. Jana Sillmann)
  • Alexander Rischmüller: "Bayesian modeling of extreme precipitation in Germany" (principal supervision by Prof. Dr. Jana Sillmann)
  • Josipa Županić: "Using km-scale Global Climate Model Simulations to Study the Physical Impacts of Climate Change for Informing Adaptation Strategies" (principal supervision by Prof. Dr. Jana Sillmann, co-supervision by Dr. Lukas Brunner)
  • Maša Avakumovic: "Modelling and simulating extreme events in the climate system" (preliminary) (principal supervision by Prof. Dr. Jörn Behrens, co-supervision by Prof. Dr. Jana Sillmann)
  • Eduardo Alastrué de Asenjo: "The impact of AMOC variations on European climate and extremes" (principal supervision by Prof. Dr. Johanna Baehr, co-supervision by Prof. Dr. Jana Sillmann)

Open MSc Topics:

  • "Representation of dry days in km-scale models" (supervision by Dr. Benjamin Poschlod and Dr. Lukas Brunner; more information here)
  • "Importance of km-scale model resolution for impacts" (supervision by Dr. Benjamin Poschlod and Dr. Lukas Brunner; more information here)
  • "Ocean-atmosphere compound events" (supervision by Dr. Leonard Borchert)
  • "Improving seasonal predictions for US agriculture using physical process understanding" (supervision by Dr. Leonard Borchert)
  • "Windows of opportunity in decadal climate predictions" (supervision by Dr. Leonard Borchert)
  • "Climate extreme impacts on Swedish forestry and their change under global warming" (supervision by Dr. Leonard Borchert and Dr. Thomas Pugh @ Lund University)
  • "Climate extreme storylines using high-resolution climate models" (supervision by Dr. Lukas Brunner, Dr. Leonard Borchert and Prof. Dr. Jana Sillmann)
  • "Heatwave properties in high-resolution models" (supervision by Dr. Lukas Brunner; more information here)
  • "Representation of extremes in km-scale models" (supervision by Dr. Lukas Brunner; more information here)
  • "Discriminate climate observations, predictions, and projections using (explainable) machine learning methods" (supervision by Dr. Lukas Brunner; more information here)
  • "Daily temperature increments in models and observations" (supervision by Dr. Lukas Brunner; more information here)
  • "Genealogy from the first coupled models to the latest km-scale models" (supervision by Dr. Lukas Brunner; more information here)
  • "Heavy rainfall after long-term droughts can be devastating (e.g. Emilia-Romagna 2023): How will this type of compound event change in a warmer climate?" (supervision by Dr. Benjamin Poschlod)
  • "Mapping the occurrence of rain-on-snow events over Europe using a new high-resolution reanalysis” (supervision by Dr. Benjamin Poschlod)
  • “Can stochastic weather generators capture variability in rainfall extremes? A perfect model experiment involving pyraingen and the CRCM5-LE” (supervision by Dr. Benjamin Poschlod)
  • "The use and usefulness of extreme weather event attribution for litigation studies"
  • "Precipitation and wind extremes due to intense small-scale energy fluxes (e.g. explosive midlatitude cyclone, convection)"
  • "Impact of the Southern Ocean cooling on land extreme events over the northern hemisphere"

Completed MSc Topics:

  • Marc Lennartz: "Exploring Hourly Rainfall Extremes in a Changing Climate: A Comparative Analysis of sMEV and GEV Distributions Using COSMO-CLM Simulations over Germany” (supervision by Dr. Benjamin Poschlod and Prof. Dr. Jürgen Böhner)
  • Ingrid Matanic: "Representation of droughts in high-resolution RCMs (COSMO-CLM over Germany)" (supervision by Dr. Benjamin Poschlod and Prof. Dr. Jana Sillmann)
  • Josipa Zupanic: "Compound wind-precipitation extremes in Europe in the CRCM5-LE" (supervision by Prof. Dr. Jana Sillmann and Dr. Benjamin Poschlod)