Academic Career

Current Project

“Sturmklima Hessen” - Antropogene Änderung des Sturmklimas über Europa und mögliche Folgen für die Region Hessen (Anthropogienic change of the storm climate in Europe and potential impacts for the federal state of Hessen, Germany)

Project leader: Prof. Dr. Uwe Ulbrich

Scientific Assistant: Mareike Schuster

In a changing climate, with increasing temperatures and moisture, the extratropical circulation will likely change, and so will the dynamics of North Atlantic windstorms. Extratropical storms may take different paths than in the past, and show modified characteristics such as their frequency, intensity, lifetime, or extent. However, these changes of storm characteristics and impacts, especially on the regional scale, still exhibit substantial uncertainties due to low confidence in the underlying changes of the circulation and storm tracks in a changing climate - partly because the interannual variability is larger than climate change related trends but also because previous analyses are based coarse resolution simulations and/or single model studies.

This project “Sturmklima Hessen”, funded by HLNUG (Hessisches Landesamt für Naturschutz, Umwelt und Geologie), aims to address these issues.

It aims to estimate the spread of possible developments regarding the storm risk and its impacts for the federal state of Hessen, Germany in a changing climate. A multitude of global and regional climate simulations is evaluated, including spatially and temporally higher resolved models preferably in large ensembles, to draw robust conclusions on expected changes using different warming scenarios. In cooperation with the GDV (Gesamtverband der Deutschen Versicherungswirtschaft) the storm induced loss on residential buildings will be related to the wind speed of model and observation based data using deterministic and probabilistic statistical models. The impact of the resolution of the model on the representation of the storm climate is explored and particularly ruinous episodes as well as categorized storm events are downscaled to estimate the range of losses. Seasonal and decadal predictions are considered as well as high resolved (regional) climate experiments.

Research Interests

• Extratropical cyclones and storm diagnostics

• Meteorological extreme events

• Interannual to decadal climate prediction

Projects

Publications

2019

Schuster, M., Grieger, J., Richling, A., Schartner, T., Illing, S., Kadow, C., Müller, W. A., Pohlmann, H., Pfahl, S., and Ulbrich, U. (2019): Improvement in the decadal prediction skill of the North Atlantic extratropical winter circulation through increased model resolution, Earth Syst. Dynam., 10, 901–917, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-10-901-2019, 2019.

Kadow, C., Illing, S., Kunst, O., Schartner, T., Grieger, J., Schuster, M., Richling, A., Kirchner, I., Rust, H., Cubasch, U., and Ulbrich, U. (2019): Freva – Free Evaluation System Framework for EarthSystem Modeling, Journal of Open Research Software, in review

2018

Wolfgang A. Müller, with support of many MiKlip members (2018): Climate Predictions with MPI-ESM: Recent Achievements and Challenges, B2-01, Subseasonal to Decadal Prediction conference, Boulder

Schuster, M., Grieger, J., Richling, A., Schartner, T., Illing, S., Kadow, C., Müller, W.A., Pohlmann, H., Pfahl, S. and Ulbrich, U. (2018): A skill assessment of the extratropical circulation in the high-res and low-res MiKlip decadal prediction system, P-B2-05, Subseasonal to Decadal Prediction conference, Boulder

Schuster, M., Grieger, J., Illing, S., Kadow, C., Schartner, T., and Ulbrich, U. (2018): A skill assessment of the extratropical circulation in different stages of the MiKlip decadal prediction system, In EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts, Abstract Nr. EGU2018-8826

2017

Schuster, M., Eddounia, F., Kuhnel, I., and Ulbrich, U. (2017): A new approach for the assessment of temporal clustering of extratropicalwind storms, In EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts, Abstract Nr. EGU2017-14155-1

2016

Illing, S., Schuster, M., Kadow, C., Kröner, I., Richling, A., Grieger, J., Kruschke, T., Lang, B., Redl, R., Schartner, T., and Cubasch, U. (2016): Evaluation and Verification of Decadal Predictions using the MiKlip Central Evaluation System – a Case Study using the MiKlip Prototype Model Data, In EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts, Abstract Nr. EGU2016-14013 

Schuster, M., Thürkow, M., Weiher, S., Kirchner, I., Ulbrich, U., and Will, A. (2016): The influence of an atmospheric Two-Way coupled model system on the predictability of extratropical cyclones, In EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts, Abstract Nr. EGU2016-16589 

Höschel, I., Schuster, M., Grieger, J., and Ulbrich, U. (2016): Influence of prolonged Anomalies in North Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature on Winter Windstorms, In EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts, Abstract Nr. EGU2016-7515 

Schuster, M., Thürkow, M., Weiher, S., Kirchner, I., Ulbrich, U., and Will, A. (2016): Improved seasonal predictability of extra-tropical cyclones in a Two-Way Coupled Atmosphere Ocean Model, In Kurzfassungen der Meteorologentagung DACH, Abstract Nr. DACH2016-90 

Thürkow, M., Kirchner, I., Schuster, M., Ulbrich, U., Weiher, S., and Will, A. (2016): Perspektiven der Modellierung atmosphärischer Skalenwechselwirkung - DIE Zwei-Wege Kopplung, In Kurzfassungen der Meteorologentagung DACH, Abstract Nr. DACH2016-80

2015

Ulbrich, U., Grieger, J., Schuster, M., Kuhnel, I. (2015): Variability of the relation of the North Atlantic Oscillation and European winter windstorms during the last millennium, Prague, 26th IUGG General Assembly 2015 

Grieger, J., Schuster, M., Höschel, I., Ulbrich, U. (2015): Winter windstorms during the last millennium and their relationship to NAO and AMV, Bern, 5th Conference on European Storms, http://www.oeschger.unibe.ch/events/conferences/storm/abstracts.pdf

2014

Schuster, M., Donat, M., Grieger, J., Leckebusch, G.C., Ulbrich, U. (2014): Climate change of Southern Hemisphere cyclone activity and its possible mechanisms, Geophysical Research Abstracts. - 16, Abstract Nr. EGU2014-4041-1 

Grieger, J., Leckebusch, G.C., Donat, M., Schuster, M., Ulbrich, U. (2014): Southern Hemisphere winter cyclone activity under recent and future climate conditions in multi-model AOGCM simulations, International Journal of Climatology, DOI: 10.1002/joc.3917

2013

Ulbrich, U., Leckebusch, G.C., Grieger, J., Schuster, M., Akperov, M., Bardin, M.Y., Feng, Y., Gulev, S., Inatsu, M., Keay, K., Kew, S.F., Liberato, M.L.R., Lionello, P., Mokhov, I.I., Neu, U., Pinto, J.G., Raible, C., Reale, M., Rudeva, I., Simmonds, I., Tilinina, N.D., Trigo, I.F., Ulbrich, S., Wang, X.L., Wernli, H. and the IMILAST team (2013): Are Greenhouse Gas Signals of Northern Hemisphere winter extra-tropical cyclone activity dependent on the identification and tracking methodology?, Meteorologische Zeitschrift, 22(1), 61-68, DOI: 10.1127/0941-2948/2013/0420 

Neu, U., Akperov, M.G., Bellenbaum, N., Benestad, R., Blender, R., Caballero, R., Cocozza, A., Dacre, H.F., Feng, Y., Fraedrich, K., Grieger, J., Gulev, S., Hanley, J., Hewson, T., Inatsu, M., Keay, K., Kew, S.F., Kindem, I., Leckebusch, G.C., Liberato, M.L.R., Lionello, P., Mokhov, I.I., Pinto, J.G., Raible, C.C., Reale, M., Rudeva, I., Schuster, M., Simmonds, I., Sinclair, M., Sprenger, M., Tilinina, N.D., Trigo, I.F., Ulbrich, S., Ulbrich, U., Wang, X.L., Wernli, H. (2013): IMILAST - a community effort to intercompare extratropical cyclone detection and tracking algorithms, BAMS, 94(4), 529-547, DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00154.1

Others:

MesoTel Schlussbericht Sonstige Veröffentlichung Verbundprojekt MiKlip-MesoTel - Mesoskalige Entwicklung von Stürmen auf der Nordhemisphäre, Telekonnexionen und die inter-annuelle Klimavorhersage - Teilprojekt 2 - Modul C : Schlussbericht Schuster, M., Thürkow, M., Kirchner, I., Ulbrich, U.