trackow.github.io: A repository from trackow

Website Contents

TOC {:toc}

Research

Climate models are vital to understand and predict our changing Earth. I do my share by accounting for underrepresented ocean eddies, leads in sea ice, and entirely new model components that impact climate variability (e.g. meltwater from drifting icebergs or stochasticity in the air-sea exchange) , so that we can be confident in our future decisions.

Outreach / Blogposts / Interviews / Podcasts

Session co-convener at EGU2024 on km-scale modelling with Hans Segura, Dian Putrasahan, Daisuke Takasuka, and Tobias Becker, link, Vienna, Austria.
Researcher video profile for nextGEMS with Latest Thinking video
Scrollytelling news story about iceberg A23a, the giant that calved in 1986 and stayed grounded for more than 3 decades, in Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
IFS-FESOM nextGEMS overview presentation at Universidad Complutense Madrid, Spain, "Developments from Cycle 2 to Cycle 3 in IFS-FESOM", Cycle 3 Hackathon, 29 May - 2nd June 2023.
Highlight presentation at EGU 2023 in Vienna, Austria, "Storm- and eddy-resolving simulations with IFS-FESOM/NEMO at the kilometre scale". Check the abstract and material on the EGU website, doi:10.5194/egusphere-egu23-16453
Invited Keynote presentation about the relationship between Digital Twins and Polar science, 2nd MOSAiC conference in Boulder, Colorado, USA.
Invited talk at ExtremWetterKongress 2022 in Hamburg, Germany. See my German talk on YouTube
Modelling expert at Potsdam Summer School 2021, https://potsdam-summer-school.org, 18 August 2021.
Art+Science My melting stripes, inspired by the popular warming/climate stripes, are featured in the latest newsletter of the Year of Polar Prediction Project (YOPP) as design elements Link to PolarPredictNews #17, page 30/31 for overview map
Live radio interview on National German radio about the possible role of icebergs in transitioning between ice ages, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, in German mp3 link / link to our paper in Nature / link to radio station
Animated simulated sea ice and ocean circulation for MOSAiC TV documentary, with Viktor Stickel/bitteschoen.tv Link to the TV documentary / The documentary is nominated for the German "Grimme-Preis 2021"
A brief history of A68 - the world's largest iceberg. Link to the post @ EGU's Cryoblog
Happy birthday, A68! Link to the post @ AWI Eisblog
Trapped in sea ice: Educating the future generations of polar scientists. Link to the post @ EGU's Cryoblog
MOSAiC drift math puzzle for the annual German math calendar, with Dr. Falk Ebert (teacher at Herder-Gymnasium, Berlin) Link to the puzzle / Impressions / Prize ceremony with about 1000 children and pupils
The IcePod: Episode 1 - The First Time. Podcast with Kirstin Werner and Sara Pasqualetto about my participation during MOSAiC expedition to the Central Arctic. Link to the Podcast (97 minutes!)
How to predict the weather on a Russian icebreaker. Link to the post @ CU Boulder
My 2017 iceberg study is a Scientific Highlight in the AWI "Kuratoriumsbericht" link / Journal Highlight/Cover image / AGU top-downloaded paper / AWI press release
Where is the giant iceberg from the Larsen C Ice Shelf heading? Interview in magazine of the Climate Sciences Division at the Alfred Wegener Institute Link to the English PDF (p.42-45) Deutsche Version (S.42-45) / Press release

Graphic: Tanja Deutschländer/Thomas Rackow
Ein Riese macht sich auf den Weg Expert post about iceberg A68 with Dr. Daniela Jansen for BMBF's "Wissenschaftsjahr 2016/17 Meere und Ozeane". Link to the post
Various radio interviews and newspaper articles after iceberg A68's calving in 2017. For example, BBC news, Spiegel, Stern, FAZ, Zeit, MDR, FM4 Austria, HR-info, or BR radio.
Can Antarctic icebergs solve South Africa's water crisis? In IQ - Wissenschaft und Forschung. Link to the (German) radio station {:reversed="reversed"}


Graphic: Tanja Deutschländer/Thomas Rackow

Submitted publications

Brunner, L., Ghosh, R., Haimberger, L., Hohenegger, C., Putrasahan, D., Rackow, T., Knutti, R., and Voigt, A.: Toward Digital Twins of Earth: Tracing three decades of climate model improvements, submitted
Koldunov, N., Rackow, T., Lessig, C., Danilov, S., Cheedela, S., Sidorenko, S., Sandu, I., and Jung, T.: Emerging AI-based weather prediction models as downscaling tools. preprint on arXiv

<div class='altmetric-embed' data-badge-type="donut" data-badge-popover="right" data-doi="10.48550/arxiv.2406.17977" data-hide-less-than="20">
</div>

Goessling, H.F., Rackow, T., and Jung, T.: Recent global temperature surge amplified by record-low planetary albedo, preprint on arXiv, in review

<div class='altmetric-embed' data-badge-type="donut" data-badge-popover="right" data-doi="10.48550/arxiv.2405.19986" data-hide-less-than="20">
</div>

Rackow, T., Pedruzo-Bagazgoitia, X., Becker, T., Milinski, S., Sandu, I., Aguridan, R., Bechtold, P., Beyer, S., Bidlot, J., Boussetta, S., Diamantakis, M., Dueben, P., Dutra, E., Forbes, R., Goessling, H. F., Hadade, I., Hegewald, J., Keeley, S., Kluft, L., Koldunov, N., Koldunov, A., Kölling, T., Kousal, J., Mogensen, K., Quintino, T., Polichtchouk, I., Sármány, D., Sidorenko, D., Streffing, J., Sützl, B., Takasuka, D., Tietsche, S., Valentini, M., Vannière, B., Wedi, N., Zampieri, L., and Ziemen, F.: Multi-year simulations at kilometre scale with the Integrated Forecasting System coupled to FESOM2.5/NEMOv3.4, EGUsphere, preprint, in review

<div class='altmetric-embed' data-badge-type="donut" data-badge-popover="right" data-doi="10.5194/egusphere-2024-913" data-hide-less-than="20">
</div>

Beech, N., Rackow, T., Semmler, T., and Jung, T.: Eddy activity in the high-latitude Southern Ocean and its response to climate change, in review
Poujol, B., Lee, J., Rackow, T., Rotach, M., and Ban, N.: Do kilometer-scale climate models really perform better over complex topography? , in review for Geophysical Research Letters {:reversed="reversed"}

Peer-reviewed publications

B. Rabe, C. J. Cox, YC. Fang, H. F. Goessling, M. A. Granskog, M. Hoppmann, J. K. Hutchings, T. Krumpen, I. Kuznetsov, R. Lei, T. Li, W. Maslowski, M. Nicolaus, D. Perovich, O. Persson, J. Regnery, I. Rigor, M. D. Shupe, V. Sokolov, G. Spreen, T. Stanton, D. M. Watkins, E. Blockley, H. J. Buenger, S. Cole, A. Fong, J. Haapala, C. Heuzé, C. J. M. Hoppe, M. Janout, A. Jutila, C. Katlein, R. Krishfield, L. Lin, V. Ludwig, A. Morgenstern, J. O'Brien, A. Q. Zurita, T. Rackow, K. Riemann-Campe, A. Rinke, J. Rohde, W. Shaw, V. Smolyanitsky, A. Solomon, A. Sperling, R. Tao, J. Toole, M. Tsamados, J. Zhu, G. Zuo (2024): The MOSAiC Distributed Network: observing the coupled Arctic system with multidisciplinary, coordinated platforms, link

<div class='altmetric-embed' data-badge-type="donut" data-badge-popover="right" data-doi="10.1525/elementa.2023.00103" data-hide-less-than="20">
</div>

Ackermann, L., Rackow, T., Himstedt, K., Gierz, P., Knorr, G., and Lohmann, G. (2024): A comprehensive Earth system model (AWI-ESM2.1) with interactive icebergs: effects on surface and deep-ocean characteristics, Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 3279–3301, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-3279-2024, link.

<div class='altmetric-embed' data-badge-type="donut" data-badge-popover="right" data-doi="10.5194/gmd-17-3279-2024" data-hide-less-than="20">
</div>

Beech, N., Rackow, T., Semmler, T., and Jung, T. (2024): Exploring the ocean mesoscale at reduced computational cost with FESOM 2.5: efficient modeling strategies applied to the Southern Ocean, Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 529–543, 10.5194/gmd-17-529-2024, 2024.

<div class='altmetric-embed' data-badge-type="donut" data-badge-popover="right" data-doi="10.5194/gmd-17-529-2024" data-hide-less-than="20">
</div>

Beech, N., Rackow, T., Semmler, T., Danilov, S., Wang, Q., and Jung, T. (2022): Long-term evolution of ocean eddy activity in a warming world link / Nature Editorial including our paper / News & Views comment / AWI press release in German / AWI press release in English

<div class='altmetric-embed' data-badge-type="donut" data-badge-popover="right" data-doi="10.1038/s41558-022-01478-3" data-hide-less-than="20">
</div>

Streffing, J., Sidorenko, D., Semmler, T., Zampieri, L., Scholz, P., Andrés-Martínez, M., Koldunov, N., Rackow, T., Kjellsson, J., Goessling, H., Athanase, M., Wang, Q., Sein, D., Mu, L., Fladrich, U., Barbi, D., Gierz, P., Danilov, S., Juricke, S., Lohmann, G., and Jung, T. (2022): AWI-CM3 coupled climate model: description and evaluation experiments for a prototype post-CMIP6 model, Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 6399–6427, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6399-2022, 2022

<div class='altmetric-embed' data-badge-type="donut" data-badge-popover="right" data-doi="10.5194/gmd-15-6399-2022" data-hide-less-than="20">
</div>

Rackow, T., Danilov, S., Goessling, H. F., Hellmer, H. H., Sein, D. V., Semmler, T., Sidorenko, D., and Jung, T. (2022). Delayed Antarctic sea-ice decline in high-resolution climate change simulations. Nature Communications 13, 637. link / / AWI press release in German / AWI press release in English

2021
Semmler, T., Jungclaus, J., Danek, C., Goessling, H.F., Koldunov, N., Rackow, T., Sidorenko, D. (2021): Ocean model formulation influences transient climate response. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 126, e2021JC017633. link /
Sidorenko, D., Danilov, S., Streffing, J., Fofonova, V., Goessling, H. F., Wang, Q., CabosNarvaez, W. D., Juricke, S., Koldunov, N. V., Rackow, T., Scholz, P., Sein, D. V., Jung, T. (2021). AMOC variability and watermass transformations in the AWI climate model. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems 13, e2021MS002582 / link /
Starr, A., Hall, I.R., Barker, S., Rackow, T., Zhang, X., Hemming, S.R., van der Lubbe, H.J.L, Knorr, G., Berke, M.A., Bigg, G.R., Cartagena, A., Jiminez-Espejo, F.J., Gong, X., Gruetzner, J., Lathika, N., LeVay, L.J., Robinson, R., Ziegler, M., Exp. 361 Science Party (2021): Antarctic icebergs reorganize ocean circulation during Pleistocene glacials. Nature 589, 236-241. link / Cardiff University press release / AWI press release in German / AWI press release in English
Barbat, M. M., Rackow, T., Wesche, C., Hellmer, H. H., and Mata, M. M (2021): Automated iceberg tracking with a machine learning approach applied to SAR imagery: A Weddell Sea case study. ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing 172, link

2020
Semmler, T., Danilov, S., Gierz, P., Goessling, H. F., Hegewald, J., Hinrichs, C., Koldunov, N., Khosravi, N., Mu, L., Rackow, T., Sein, D., Sidorenko, D., Wang, Q., Jung, T. (2020): Simulations for CMIP6 with the AWI climate model AWI-CM-1-1. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems 12, e2019MS002009. link
Krumpen, T., Birrien, F., Kauker, F., Rackow, T., von Albedyll, L., Angelopoulos, M., Belter, H. J., Bessonov, V., Damm, E., Dethloff, K., Haapala, J., Haas, C., Harris, C., Hendricks, S., Hoelemann, J., Hoppmann, M., Kaleschke, L., Karcher, M., Kolabutin, N., Lei, R., Lenz, J., Morgenstern, A., Nicolaus, M., Nixdorf, U., Petrovsky, T., Rabe, B., Rabenstein, L., Rex, M., Ricker, R., Rohde, J., Shimanchuk, E., Singha, S., Smolyanitsky, V., Sokolov, V., Stanton, T., Timofeeva, A., and Tsamados, M., and Watkins, D. (2020): The MOSAiC ice floe: sediment-laden survivor from the Siberian shelf, The Cryosphere, link / EGU Highlight Article / EGU press release / AWI press release
Bracegirdle, T. J., Krinner, G., Tonelli, M., F. Haumann, A., Naughten, K. A., Rackow, T., Roach, L. A., Wainer, I. (2020). Twenty first century changes in Antarctic and Southern Ocean surface climate in CMIP6. Atmospheric Science Letters. link
Rackow, T. and Juricke, S. (2020): Flow‐dependent stochastic coupling for climate models with high ocean‐to‐atmosphere resolution ratio, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 146 (726), pp. 284-300. link / citation / top-downloaded paper
Bracegirdle, T. J., Holmes, C. R., Hosking, J. S., Marshall, G. J., Osman, M., Patterson, M., and Rackow, T. (2020): Improvements in Circumpolar Southern Hemisphere Extratropical Atmospheric Circulation in CMIP6 Compared to CMIP5. Earth and Space Science, 7, e2019EA001065. link
Roach, L. A., Dörr, J., Holmes, C. R., Massonnet, F., Blockley, E. W., Notz, D., Rackow, T., Raphael, M. N., O'Farrell S. P., Bailey, D. A., Bitz, C. M. (2020): Antarctic sea ice area in CMIP6. Geophysical Research Letters, 47, e2019GL086729. doi:10.1029/2019GL086729 | AGU top 10% most-downloaded paper 2020

2019
Rackow, T., Sein, D. V., Semmler, T., Danilov, S., Koldunov, N. V., Sidorenko, D., Wang, Q., and Jung, T. (2019): Sensitivity of deep ocean biases to horizontal resolution in prototype CMIP6 simulations with AWI-CM1.0, Geoscientific Model Development, 12 (7), pp. 2635-2656. link | bibTeX | videos
Barbat, M. M., Rackow, T., Hellmer, H. H., Wesche, C., and Mata, M. M. (2019): Three years of near‐coastal Antarctic iceberg distribution from a machine learning approach applied to SAR imagery, Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans. link / iceberg distributions for 1997, 2000, 2008
Sidorenko, D., Goessling, H. F., Koldunov, N., Scholz, P., Danilov, S., Barbi, D., Cabos, W., Gurses, O., Harig, S., Hinrichs, C., Juricke, S., Lohmann, G., Losch, M., Mu, L., Rackow, T., Rakowsky, N., Sein, D. V., Semmler, T., Shi, X., Stepanek, C., Streffing, J., Wang, Q., Wekerle, C., Yang, H., and Jung, T. (2019): Evaluation of FESOM2.0 Coupled to ECHAM6.3: Preindustrial and HighResMIP Simulations, Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 11 (11), pp. 3794-3815. link

2018
Rackow, T., Goessling, H. F., Jung, T., Sidorenko, D., Semmler, T., Barbi, D., and Handorf, D. (2018): Towards multi-resolution global climate modeling with ECHAM6-FESOM. Part II: climate variability, Climate Dynamics, 50. link
Sein, D. V., Koldunov, N. V., Danilov, S., Sidorenko, D., Wekerle, C., Cabos, W., Rackow, T., Scholz, P., Semmler, T., Wang, Q., and Jung, T. (2018): The Relative Influence of Atmospheric and Oceanic Model Resolution on the Circulation of the North Atlantic Ocean in a Coupled Climate Model, Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems. link

2017
Rackow, T., Wesche, C., Timmermann, R., Hellmer, H., Juricke, S., and Jung, T. (2017): A simulation of small to giant Antarctic iceberg evolution: Differential impact on climatology estimates, Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans. link | Journal Highlight/Cover image | AGU top-downloaded paper / AWI press release
Sein, D. V., Koldunov, N. V., Danilov, S., Wang, Q., Sidorenko, D., Fast, I., Rackow, T., Cabos, W., and Jung, T. (2017): Ocean Modeling on a Mesh With Resolution Following the Local Rossby Radius, Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems. link
Zadra, A., Williams, K., Frassoni, A., Rixen, M., Adames, Á. F., Berner, J., Bouyssel, F., Casati, B., Christensen, H., Ek, M. B., Flato, G., Huang, Y., Judt, F., Lin, H., Maloney, E., Merryfield, W., van Niekerk, A., Rackow, T., Saito, K., Wedi, N., and Yadav, P. (2017): Systematic Errors in Weather and Climate Models: Nature, Origins, and Way Forward, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. link

pre-2017
Sidorenko, D., Rackow, T., Jung, T., Semmler, T., Barbi, D., Danilov, S., Dethloff, K., Dorn, W., Fieg, K., Goessling, H. F., Handorf, D., Harig, S., Hiller, W., Juricke, S., Losch, M., Schröter, J., Sein, D., and Wang, Q. (2015): Towards multi-resolution global climate modeling with ECHAM6–FESOM. Part I: model formulation and mean climate, Climate Dynamics, 44 (3), pp. 757-780. link
Juricke, S., Lemke, P., Timmermann, R., and Rackow, T. (2013): Effects of Stochastic Ice Strength Perturbation on Arctic Finite Element Sea Ice Modeling, Journal of Climate, 26 (11), pp. 3785-3802. link {:reversed="reversed"}

Dimensions badges are only shown for papers with at least one citation; Altmetric badges are shown in addition for papers that received a high media attention (score of at least 20).

Other publications

Fixing water and energy budget imbalances in the Integrated Forecasting System. Becker, T., Rackow, T., Pedruzo, X., Sandu, I., Forbes, R., Diamantakis, M., Bechtold, P., and Polichtchouk, I. (2022). ECMWF newsletter, Number 172. Read it
Contributing author for the BMBF Polarforschungsagenda, POLARREGIONEN IM WANDEL, Konzeptpapier des Mare:N-Begleitkreises PDF
A set of illustrations for the kids story Endangered - But Still There Is Hope by Dr. Stephan Juricke, February 2021, in Volume II of the book series Once upon a time... a scientific fairy tale. PDF
Cruise report about Leg1a of MOSAiC Expedition chapter 5.4: Weather and Ice forecasts. The Expedition AF122/1 - Setting up the MOSAiC Distributed Network in October 2019 with Research Vessel AKADEMIK FEDOROV. Edited by T. Krumpen and V. Sokolov / ePIC entry {:reversed="reversed"}

Science Art

{::options parse_block_html="false" /}

Photo Gallery of some of my impressions from the MOSAiC expedition to the Arctic Ocean, gallery link
Climate meets music: Global mean temperature rise in sync with trending music based on data from MetOffice (Global HadCRUT5 Analysis) for 1850-2020:

@polarthomas
##NoMoreEmptyPromises ! ##climatestrike #c#limatechange #c#limatecrisis #c#limate #c#limatejustice @l@luisamneubauer f@fridaysforfutureberlin g#retathunberg
♬ Roses (Imanbek Remix) - SAINt JHN

Regional melting stripes for the Arctic and Antarctic based on data from NASA for 1979-2017

My #SciArt is featured in the latest @polarprediction magazine 🥳 edited by @kirstinwerner

"Melting-stripes" for #Arctic and #Antarctic #seaice inspired by the popular climate stripes @ed_hawkins @alxrdk #ShowYourStripes ▶️ https://t.co/zYdOS10D3i https://t.co/tK9sUqMW0B pic.twitter.com/T330uwbhHF
— Thomas Rackow 🧊 (@thomas_rackow) March 1, 2021

Another "Flatten the Curve" illustration for Earth Day 2020 and the Scientists 4 Future Link / Instagram
Illustration for the Sea Ice Drift Forecast Experiment (SIDFEx) Link / ECMWF's twitter
Contributed the piece "Flatten the Curve" to a virtual exhibition in September 2020 organized by Pint of Science UK about COVID19 and Climate Change: "Covid19 and climate change teach us that we should listen to the science. Climate projections until the end of the 21st century are based on possible future scenarios of greenhousegas emissions. While surface temperature is projected to "go through the roof" for the highest emission scenario, more agressive mitigation scenarios provide reason to stay optimistic, because the temperature curves "flatten" back towards the temperature range during which human civilization was striving. "Flattening the curve" thus applies to both disciplines. It is in our hands to stop negative impacts of the coronavirus and prevent runaway climate change." Link to the virtual exhibition @ kunstmatrix / Instagram
The (Drawn) Distributed Network Around Polarstern, MOSAiC Expedition Zenodo link
MOSAiC farewell illustration for Polarstern and Akademik Fedorov leaving Tromso in September 2019 e.g. MOSAiC Mondays newsletter / Polarprediction

Sieh dir diesen Beitrag auf Instagram an

Off you Go, #Polarstern! Waving Goodbye and wishing all expedition members a successful first leg of @mosaic_expedition see link in bio Illustration by @polarthomas

Ein Beitrag geteilt von Year of Polar Prediction (@polarprediction) am Sep 20, 2019 um 1:22 PDT
<script async src="//www.instagram.com/embed.js"></script>
Arctic sea ice decrease animation resembling the 1st ever image of a black hole

To communicate the #gravity of the situation, I visualised Arctic #seaice decrease resembling the 1st ever image of a #BlackHole @ehtelescope. Colors are brighter closer to the "ice-free" event horizon. #SeaIceMatters #ClimateChangeSucks @AWI_media @ed_hawkins @JannaLevin @ZLabe https://t.co/2IRoXjoMf4 pic.twitter.com/tlO73HHDhV
— Thomas Rackow (@thomas_rackow) May 16, 2019
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Melting Stripes for Arctic and Antarctic sea ice Arctic / Antarctic

Meanwhile, around Antarctica...: September #seaice extent over 1979-2018 was stable (slightly expanding), but after 2014 a rather rapid retreat set in〽️. #showyourstripes @ed_hawkins #meltingstripes https://t.co/WrzQL3OSpG pic.twitter.com/0BOtOPnkR6
— Thomas Rackow (@thomas_rackow) July 11, 2019
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
"Breaking the ice" illustration for the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP) Link {:reversed="reversed"}

#polarpredict pic.twitter.com/QEx2WADgqm
— Polar Prediction (@polarprediction) July 14, 2015

Fieldwork

Expedition AF122/1 - Setting up the MOSAiC Distributed Network around Polarstern in October 2019 with Research Vessel AKADEMIK DEDOROV during the MOSAiC expedition to the Central Arctic Ocean / My roles: ice manager, (un)loading cargo operations / YOPP lecturer for MOSAiC School, see Cruise Report chapter 5.4 / Blogpost by Natalia Ribeiro

Peer-reviewing activity

Reviewer for Journal of Climate, Nature Communications, Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Scientific Reports, Ocean Modelling, Climate Dynamics, Polar Research; Review Editor at Frontiers in Marine Science

Verified peer-reviews at Publons / Review Editor at Frontiers in Marine Science