Kick-start of a new generation of climate scientists

Climate tipping is a worrying concept. Abrupt transitions lead to accelerated climate change because the climate system or parts of it move from one stable state to another. Assessing the risk of encountering climate tipping points due to anthropogenic global warming is one of the most urgent challenges in climate science today.

Analyzing a complex system as the Earth's climate to a high enough precision for the prediction of critical transitions involves very different mathematical concepts like stochasticity, chaos theory and dynamical systems theory. The demand for expert understanding of the physical behaviour of the climate system is equally pressing.

The study of tipping points and critical transitions is therefore leading climate science into a field of increasingly advanced mathematics and physics, creating a need for highly-trained specialists. The upstart of the CriticalEarth project will hopefully aid this essential task.

CriticalEarth’s network of 15 PhD Fellows will be trained in  new research methods for assessing the mechanisms and associated risks of critical transitions in the climate.

The focus will be on investigating how complex mathematics can be used to predict and avoid irreversible climate change. The positions will offer the students an excellent experience, working within a strong, cross-disciplinary network among 11 leading Universities and research institutions across Europe, and supported by 8 additional partners in academia, industry, governmental- and non-governmental institutions.

Professor Peter Ditlevsen, who is the leader of the CriticalEarth project : “It is extremely important that we fill the knowledge gap in the mathematical understanding of tipping points and abrupt climate change. This is a deep scientific challenge for the next generation of climate scientists and the reason for the European Commission in investing in the education of 15 excellent young researchers. I am really excited about the project and thrilled to see the development of these great young scientists and the buildup of the international scientific network in CriticalEarth.”

A Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions - Innovative Training Network is one of the most prestigious and competitive science programmes under the EU Horizon 2020 which fund CriticalEarth with more than 4 million Euros.

Contributing universities and science institutions

• The Niels Bohr Institute, The University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
• Department of Mathematics, Technische Universität München, Germany.
• Department of Mathematics, Norges Arktiske Universitet, Norway.
• Department of Physics, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.
• Department of Mathematics, University of Exeter, Great Britain.
• Department of Physics, University of Reading, Great Britain.
• Department of Environmental Engineering, Politecnico di Torina, Italy.
• Department of Atmospheric Science, Koninklijk Meteorologisch Instituut, The Netherlands.
• Laboratoire de physique, ENS de Lyon, France.
• Department of Earth Physics and Astrophysics, Universidad Complutense Madrid, Spain.
• Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Germany.

Partner organisations

• Department Mathematics and Computer Science, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.
• Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium
• Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, France
• Danish Meteorological Institute, Denmark
• Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany
  Climate Risk Analysis, Mudelsee, Germany
  Amigo Climate, Italy
• David Trads Consulting & Management, Denmark