Leipzig Institute for Meteorology

Logo of COMPEX (clouds over complex environment) showing a sketch of an aircraft, satellite, and clouds over sea ice and ocean.

One week from now, #COMPEX will kick off in #Svalbard. #Polar5 from #AWI will be operated to observe clouds over sea ice and around the #AWIPEV research base in #NyAlesund and to perform #EarthCARE underflights. 🧪 #remotesensing #AC3
@unicologne.bsky.social @unileipzig.bsky.social @awi.de @esa.int

Occurrence of seeding multi-layer clouds in the Arctic from ground-based observations Abstract. Studies of Arctic clouds often focus on low-level single-layer clouds (SLCs). Here, we use combined observations of soundings and cloud radar during the MOSAiC, ACSE, and AO2018 research cru...

New paper out in ACP:

Ice-crystal seeding from higher clouds, which can induce glaciation of supercooled clouds in lower layers, occurs in about half to two thirds of the identified cold multi-layer cloud regimes during the MOSAiC campaign in the Arctic.

acp.copernicus.org/articles/26/...

If you missed our @egu.eu @egubg.bsky.social webinar on #AcademicMentalHealth please find the link to the recording below ⬇️

@anabastos.bsky.social shared their personal experience and provided comprehensive, insightful advice. Thank you Ana for discussing this important topic 😊

iDiv and @uni-jena.de are recruiting a Postdoctoral Researcher (f/m/d) in Trait-Based Community Ecology and Modelling.

Highlights:
🔺Full-time (100%, 40 h/week) with the option to reduce to 80%
🔺Fixed-term for 2 years
🔺Salary up to E13 TV‑L

📆 Apply by: 29 March 2026

www.idiv.de/career/job-o...

The greenness of the Earth’s terrestrial vegetation changes throughout the seasons. Researchers can calculate the global “green centre” and track its movement over several decades. They have observed a gradual shift towards the north-east. By Ida Flik. https://greenwave.earth/

🌍 The earth’s green is increasing and its centre is moving north-east. Vegetational shift to the north is even stronger in the southern summer – surprising new facet of #globalgreening 🌱 Published in PNAS

1/x

Europe remains one of the economies most exposed to volatility in global energy markets.

The EU still depends on imported fossil fuels for close to 60% of its energy needs.

Among large economies, only Japan and South Korea have higher levels of energy import dependence.

A two-column status table titled "Stage" and "Start Date" tracks the timeline of a manuscript submission from its preliminary data submission on October 8, 2025, to its eventual withdrawal on March 2, 2026. The log reveals a lengthy and repetitive administrative process, particularly between October 26, 2025, and February 19, 2026, where the status cycled more than ten times between "Contacting Potential Reviewers" and "Waiting for Reviewer Assignment," suggesting significant difficulty in securing peer reviewers. Following these numerous failed attempts to move into the active review phase, the final entry shows the manuscript was officially withdrawn on March 2, 2026, at 09:08:18.

My first paper had to be mailed to Stockholm, Sweden, and then mailed to reviewers around the world. Everything by mail! It was submitted, reviewed, revised, typeset, and published in 3 months. I feel bad for early-career scientists who can't find a single reviewer after 5 months. It's gotta change.

A diagram showing how a 2 minute delay to an active travel trip reduces the accessible area from a 15-minute trip by 25%

As I was made to wait 2.5 minutes to cross a road this morning, let's again do the maths simple.ghost.io/lets-do-the-...

Artistic palaeo-reconstructions of ecosystem states in Central Europe over the last 23 million years, focusing on large herbivores and taxa indicative of openness. First row Neogene, second row Pleistocene – pre-Homo sapiens baseline, third row Holocene – non-analogous ecosystems shaped by Homo sapiens.

For 23 million years, temperate Europe was dominated by a mosaic of woodland-grassland biomes, shaped by large herbivores.

Until human started eradicating the megafauna and closed-canopy forests took over.

Paintings by Márton Zsoldos

#PaleoSky 🧪 ⚒️ 🌍 🌿

Why are we observing a 'green backlash' when serious efforts to decarbonise have scarcely begun? I'm happy to share my working paper, 'The Political Consequences of Climate Ambition: Evidence from Australia', which analyses how voters respond prospectively to proposed climate policies. Brief 🧵:

Presenting at @lse-ei.bsky.social today - all welcome (so I am told!)

Thanks @benbraun.bsky.social and @donatodc.bsky.social for the invite!

www.lse.ac.uk/european-ins...

February 2026 was the 5th warmest February on record, at 1.5C above preindustrial levels in the ERA5 dataset.

This is not that surprising given weak La Nina conditions at the start of the year; February tends to be one of the months most sensitive to ENSO.

Statement from RMetS on removal of funding for the FAAM aircraft by NERC, urging continued dialogue between funders, government and the scientific community to reassess the long-term implications of this decision. (1/4)

www.rmets.org/news/stateme...

11th National Climate Dynamics Workshop UK Climate Dynamics Workshops are annual in-person events aiming to promote collaboration amongst the UK academic sector and the Met Office.

Registration now open for the 11th UK National Climate Dynamics Workshop.

22-24 June at University of Reading. Abstract deadline is 30 April.

www.rmets.org/event/11th-n...

Shows a map of the cooling effect of sulfur emissions - mostly Northern Hemisphere. In general forcings in W/m2 cause about half in degrees of surface warming. This number also holds if recent forcings are compared with recent warming rates. In 2021 we had a net forcing of ~3 W/m2, and reached 1.5 °C in 2023/24. This would also indicate that forcings in W/m2 can be translated into surface warming by dividing it roughly by 2. So 120m tons of sulfur emissions had roughly a cooling effect of -0.5°C. As a comparison SOx reductions from IMO regulations over the shipping routes had been around 8Mt. This is about 1/15 of the 120Mt of annual emissions during 2006-2009 (time of second SOx emission peak). ~1 W/m2 divided by 15 would then translate to a total forcing of about ~0.0666 W/m2 by IMO reductions. This result would imply that IMO reductions caused a temperature increase over time by ~0.034°C. I added a table of Carbon Brief article showing that 0.0666 W/m2 aligns well with the lower estimates of the warming effect of the IMO2020 sulfur regulations. Main question that is still open is if shipping sulfur emissions had a much larger effect over the oceans as the air is more pristine? Currently, I do not know any study that supports that view, but wait here for an assessment... "Optimal choice of proxy for cloud condensation nuclei reduces uncertainty in aerosol-cloud-climate forcing"; https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aea4828

Shows a map of sulfur emissions over time. The period of their study form 2006-2009 aligns with the second emission peak of about 120Mt. Here the carbon article: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-low-sulphur-shipping-rules-are-affecting-global-warming/ The result from the study: The uncertainty caused by the proxy selection can be constrained by applying the observational scaling factors (δ) presented in Fig. 3 (Fig. 4B). Applying this constraint yields a less negative RFaci (−1.03 W m−2) than the unconstrained case (−1.21 W m−2). The 5 to 95% confidence range is substantially narrowed by ~40% from [−2.74 W m−2, −0.33 W m−2] to [−1.87 W m−2, −0.48 W m−2], thereby reducing the total uncertainty from 66 to 43%. Four years (2006–2009) of the preprocessed data are then used for analysis. This study focuses on the global ocean between 60°S and 60°N due to the limited retrieval quality over land and polar regions.

The forcing from IMO regulations in 2020 - mostly below 0.1 W/m2...

Effect of shipping sulfur reductions and where Dimethyl production in the oceans is important. Question thou how pristine is the oceans atmosphere?

A new observational estimate of sulfur cooling

They estimate it to be during 2006–2009 to be around ~1 W/m2 - a bit lower than previous estimates. During that period we had some 120Mt of annually SOx emissions.

Would be a cooling effect of 120Mt of sulfur by 0.5°C

#climate

The Great Ocean Sync: How Melting Arctic Ice Links the World’s Most Powerful Currents This blog post and the “Deep Dive” podcast, created by NotebookLM, are based on “Evolving synchronization of the Gulf Stream and Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension in a changing climate” by Joh et al. (202…

Have you noticed synchronized SST anomalies between the Pacific and Atlantic in global maps? It’s not a coincidence. According to a new study in Science Advances by Joh et al. (2026), this "oceanic handshake" is directly linked to the retreat of Arctic sea ice. 🌊🧪 ocean2climate.org/2026/03/01/t...

The Arctic’s New Engine: Why the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt is Defying the Warming Trend This blog post and the “Deep Dive” podcast, created by NotebookLM, are based on “Atlantification drives recent strengthening of the Arctic overturning circulation” by Årthun et al. (2026). A recent…

Next confirmation: AMOC stable

A Ponderable Future

The research by Årthun et al. (2025) suggests that the northern limb of the global ocean circulation is far more robust than we feared. We are seeing a system in transition, shifting its operations poleward to maintain its vital function

#climate

China’s latest energy data offers a signal worth paying attention to. In 2025, emissions from energy and industry fell by 0.3%, modest, but notable, even as total energy consumption rose by 3.5%.

The key driver? A continued surge in solar power capacity.

Congress has appropriated the funds to NSF but OMB is delaying the release. When funds are released, NSF, which has lost almost 1/5 of its staff, will struggle to evaluate proposals. Since they have to award the funds, big projects with established PIs will benefit. This is how US science dies.

New study by @hailingjia.bsky.social, collaboration between @sronspace.bsky.social @meteoleipzig.bsky.social and others: how to obtain best satellite info about cloud condensation nuclei to quantify aerosol-cloud interactions: assimilation for vertical resolution www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Front cover of journal article

Public engagement and climate change: exploring the role of hairdressers as everyday influencers

⭐New paper!⭐ Two research projects exploring the influence that hairdressers—as widespread professionals in conversational spaces—have w/ clients about climate & sustainability.

doi.org/10.1057/s415...

So, any other news yesterday?
Anything important?

More evidence that internal ocean variability is limited, confirming earlier work (Haustein et al 2019): journals.ametsoc.org/view/journal...

Given that DCENT is the most realistic observational temperature product we now have, the case for limited internal variability is even stronger.

Atlantic Multidecadal Variability since 1850 is largely externally forced Abstract. Whether observed Atlantic Multidecadal variability (AMV) is truly an intrinsic internal mode of climate variability or an externally forced response remains contentious, with conflicting lit...

First paper led by our @climatecocentre.bsky.social PhD student Yongyao has gone to open review. Blown away that after just 12 months she has a first paper submitted. egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/20... @edhawkins.org @germac.bsky.social

So MP @bromsgrovebradley.bsky.social wants to know about the CO2 impact of Chinese clean-tech manufacturing, having just asked a Q in parliament

Which is lucky, cos we published detailed analysis on this last year: China’s clean-energy exports in 2024 alone will cut overseas CO2 by 1% (inc UK)

Verschneiter Feldweg, der zwischen tiefem Schnee in die Ferne führt, umgeben von weißen Bäumen unter blauem Winterhimmel.

Karte Deutschlands mit violetter Schneehöhenverteilung, Skala rechts und rotem Rechteck über Norddeutschland, DWD-Logo unten rechts.

☃️ #Schneefälle nur noch alle 100 Jahre? Eine aktuelle DWD-Studie weist darauf hin, dass Schneefälle wie Mitte Januar in Norddeutschland zum echten Jahrhundertereignis werden könnten...

Hier geht’s zum vollständigen Bericht:🔗 www.dwd.de/DE/klimaumwel…
Foto: Miriam Wagner-Jacht / DWD, Grafik: DWD

How climate scientists balance the tension between research and public protest – new study Researchers said they tried to manage how their activism was perceived by clarifying their expertise and acting alongside other scientists.

Fascinating research by @samuelfinnerty.bsky.social on how scientist-activists navigate the tensions between their professional and activist roles, based on research with our group @scientistsforxr.earth

*This*

Advertisement poster for EMS Annual Meeting session. Text: 'Attribution of extreme weather events and their impacts (UP1). Abstract deadline March 27th. Convened by Tamara Happe, Vikki Thompson. Paolo Scussolini, Sjoukje Philip, Sarah Kew, Sanne Muis, and Doris Vertegaal.

Working on impact attribution of extreme weather events? Submit to our session at the EMS Annual Meeting in Utrecht in September!

meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EMS2026/sess...

@tamarahappe.bsky.social @sannemuis.bsky.social

Best practices for moving from correlation to causation in ecological research
🧪 #Macroecology