Atmosphere-Biosphere-Coupling, Climate & Causality

🎉 Big news! Our new website is officially live!

🌐 Our updated digital home offers insights into our ongoing research, collaborations, and opportunities at the Center and beyond.

🔗 Visit us at: mc-3.org

We invite you to explore the new website and learn more about our work!

🗓️ One month left to submit your abstracts for EGU26!

🌍 Max Planck Caltech Carnegie Columbia Center (MC3 4 Earth) hosts one of this year's sessions at European Geosciences Union’s General Assembly: "The Living Land: Land‑Mediated Feedbacks in the Earth System" (ITS1.18/BG10.1).

📢 New paper alert! 📢
Can Deep Learning (DL) models reliably extrapolate to unseen climatic conditions?
We test whether various DL architectures successfully extrapolate both spatially and temporally in a controlled setting that mimics real-world complexity.
Full paper: tinyurl.com/2ezxcxnr
#ML #AI

📢 New paper from our group! 🎉
We integrate pre-trained neural networks into the ICON-ESM land surface model (JSBACH4) and show that hybrid modeling can improve simulated water and carbon fluxes, especially under varying atmospheric dryness and water availability.
Read more: tinyurl.com/yffnp9ch

New paper with Victor Brovkin and Alexander J. Winkler! 🎉
We explore idealized esm-flat10 experiments and find, among other things, that most models exhibit a quasi-linear relationship between cumulative carbon uptake on land and in the ocean.
Read more: esd.copernicus.org/articles/16/...

Chunhui Zhan was supervised by Dr. Alexander J. Winkler, Prof. Dr. René Orth (@hydrorth-lab.bsky.social), Prof. Dr. Markus Reichstein (@reichstein-bgc.bsky.social), Prof. Dr. Sönke Zaehle, and Prof. Dr. Anja Rammig (@anjarammig.bsky.social).

@chunhuizhan.bsky.social successfully defended her PhD thesis, “The Effect of Elevated Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide on the Terrestrial Carbon and Water Cycle.”
🎉 Huge congratulations, Dr. Chunhui Zhan! 🎉

🌍 @ellis.eu #SummerSchool2025 in Jena on AI for Earth & Climate Sciences is underway
👩🏼‍🎓140 PhD students, 👨🏻‍💻13 keynote speakers & 🧑🏼‍🏫 23 tutors are diving into keynotes, hands-on sessions & collaborative projects—bridging #ML & geosciences 🌿🤖
www.ellis-jena.eu/summer-schoo...

Alexander Winkler sits at a table in a room with windows, working on a laptop and wearing a light blue shirt.

🇬🇧 Congratulations on receiving the ERC Starting Grant and best of luck with your work, Alexander Winkler! 🥳 💪
📃 more about his research: buff.ly/HJfuONf
#ERCStG @erc.europa.eu @abcube.bsky.social
Image: © Claire Robin

What an incredibly productive and exciting week at the MC3 4 Earth Center! 🎉

From 18th to 22nd of August, the members and affiliates of the Center gathered at Harnack Haus in Berlin to discuss the newest research in the field and develop plans for tackling emerging research questions together!

📣 Big things are happening behind the scenes at MC3 4 Earth Center! 📣
We’re gearing up for our upcoming workshop “The Living Land” where members and affiliates from across the Center will discuss hot-off-the-press research on land-surface/climate interactions!
We are looking forward to it!

New paper from our group!
Winkler & Sierra propose a new path forward to Impulse Response Functions (IRFs) for Earth system modeling—capturing time- and state-dependencies critical for understanding carbon–climate feedbacks.
🌍🌀 Read more in Geophysical Research Letters: tinyurl.com/bdff3b6y

Updated fossil CO2 emission estimates from @robbieandrew.bsky.social

Based on the latest data, we estimate fossil CO2 emissions went up 0.9% in 2024.

Listen to his presentation here (starting about 8:55): cicero.oslo.no/no/arrangeme...

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Wrapping up our #EGU25 with one last talk tomorrow!

📅 Fri, 02 May | 09:35–09:45 CEST |📍 Room 2.95
Space versus Time: Better Spatial Representation in Training Beats Longer Time Series for Predicting Global Land Carbon Uptake Variability
🎤 Talk by @dhafezirachti.bsky.social et al. | EGU25-12808

40 Years ago Carl Sagan knew about Climate change and he was so aware of it's impact on Nature more than us we do right now.

📅 Thu, 01 May | 16:15–18:00 CEST |📍 Hall X4 | X4.79
HYPE-CAFE: Towards a Hybrid Model for Improved Marine Primary Production Estimates
📌 Poster by Júlia Crespin et al. | EGU25-19488

📅 Thu, 01 May | 11:25–11:35 CEST |📍 Room 0.14
Phenology's Net Cooling Effect as Feedback to Global Warming
🎤 Talk by Alexander J. Winkler and the PhenoFeedBacks Team | EGU25-19629

📅 Thu, 01 May | 10:45–12:30 CEST |📍 Hall X1 | X1.45
Hybrid-Modeling of Land-Atmosphere Fluxes Using Machine Learning integrated in the ICON-ESM Modeling Framework
📌 Poster by Reda ElGhawi et al. | EGU25-4000

📅 Thu, 01 May | 10:45–12:30 CEST | Hall X1 | X1.56
Phenology-Driven Changes in Controls of the Surface Energy Balance Across Different Extratropical Ecosystems
📌 Poster by Olivia Hau et al. | EGU25-19775

Our #EGU25 contributions for tomorrow! ⬇️
Four exciting talks & posters—details in the comments 👇

Our #EGU25 contribution for tomorrow: 🌍
🗓️ Wed, 30 Apr | 16:15–18:00 CEST |📍 Hall X5 | Poster X5.93
📊 Recalibrating neural network estimates of net ecosystem exchange in a Bayesian synthesis inversion
Poster by @vitusbenson.bsky.social et al. | EGU25-17329

Excited for our first #EGU25 talk tomorrow! 🎤
🗓️ Tue, 29 Apr | 10:55–11:05 CEST | Room C
🌍 Limitations of Machine Learning Models in Extrapolating to a Changing Climate
Talk by Reimers et al. (presented by Alexander J. Winkler) | EGU25-16360

Deadline: Jan 31, 2026.
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/journal/...

📢 Call for Papers 📢 Geophysical Research Letters and Water Resources Research invite submissions for the Special Issue: Agrohydrological Processes Under Global Change! Topics: Sustainable water management, agrohydrological processes in a changing climate, sociohydrological dynamics, … . Submit now!

Éamon Ó Catháin is joining us for his master’s thesis entitled “Physically aware, observationally constrained estimates of the land carbon sink and its major drivers.” He will develop a deep learning emulator of an ensemble of land-surface models and nudge to observations using transfer learning!

We’re looking for another Scientific Coordinator (part time 80%) for the Max-Planck-Caltech-Carnegie-Columbia (MC³) Center for Earth science research @mc-3.bsky.social: Team coordination, project monitoring, planning of events & outreach activities! 📅 Apply by April 11: tinyurl.com/2s3r96my

Blue background with yellow EGU logo and text that reads "European Geosciences Union".

Hello Bluesky! EGU is pleased to be able to activate our account here, and share all the exciting news about the upcoming General Assembly: #EGU25, our #OpenAccess publications and more! Several of our Divisions will be making the move over from Twitter/X too, so keep an eye out for your favourites!

Mauricio Lima starts as a new PhD student in the group. Mauricio previously worked with river routing (@caltech.edu) and climate downscaling using machine learning models. In his PhD he will be exploring extreme events within the land-atmosphere coupled system through diffusion models.

Dr. Praveen Kumar joins our group as a postdoctoral researcher. His current research focuses on tree mortality analysis using machine learning and deep learning models to identify key environmental and physiological triggers responsible for tree mortality.

🌍🤖 Join us for the 9th session of the AI for Earth and Sustainability Science Webinar Series!

📅 12 February 2025

⏰ 17:00 - 18:00 CET, Geneva

📚 Topic: Adapting Machine Learning for Atmosphere-Biosphere Coupling in Earth System Models

🔗: aiforgood.itu.int/event/adapti...