Website Contents

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

  1. Several interviews for our recent paper in Science about the recent planetary albedo decline DOI, for example Astronomy magazine, DownToEarth, Smithsonian Mag, Cosmos Magazine, ArsTechnica, Inside Climate News also featured on Youtube, or on Gavin Schmidt’s blog RealClimate

  2. Session co-convener at EGU2024 on km-scale modelling with Hans Segura, Dian Putrasahan, Daisuke Takasuka, and Tobias Becker, link, Vienna, Austria.

  3. Researcher video profile for nextGEMS with Latest Thinking video

  4. Scrollytelling news story about iceberg A23a, the giant that calved in 1986 and stayed grounded for more than 3 decades, in Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

  5. 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.

  6. 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

  7. Invited Keynote presentation about the relationship between Digital Twins and Polar science, 2nd MOSAiC conference in Boulder, Colorado, USA.

  8. Invited talk at ExtremWetterKongress 2022 in Hamburg, Germany. See my German talk on YouTube

  9. Modelling expert at Potsdam Summer School 2021, https://potsdam-summer-school.org, 18 August 2021.

  10. 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

  11. 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

  12. 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”

  13. A brief history of A68 - the world’s largest iceberg. Link to the post @ EGU’s Cryoblog

  14. Happy birthday, A68! Link to the post @ AWI Eisblog

  15. Trapped in sea ice: Educating the future generations of polar scientists. Link to the post @ EGU’s Cryoblog

  16. 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

  17. 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!)

  18. How to predict the weather on a Russian icebreaker. Link to the post @ CU Boulder

  19. My 2017 iceberg study is a Scientific Highlight in the AWI “Kuratoriumsbericht” link / Journal Highlight/Cover image / AGU top-downloaded paper / AWI press release

  20. 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

    Iceberg_Routes
    Graphic: Tanja Deutschländer/Thomas Rackow

  21. 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

  22. 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.

  23. Can Antarctic icebergs solve South Africa’s water crisis? In IQ - Wissenschaft und Forschung. Link to the (German) radio station

Submitted publications

  1. John, A., Beyer, S., Athanase, M., Sanchez-Benítez, A., Goessling, H. F., Hossain, A., Nurisso, M., Aguridan, R., Andrés-Martínez, M., Gaya-Àvila, A., Cheedela, S. K., Geier, P., Ghosh, R., Hadade, I., Koldunov, N. V., Pedruzo-Bagazgoitia, X., Rackow, T., Sandu, I., Sidorenko, D., Streffing, J., Vitali, E., and Jung, T.: Global Storyline Simulations at the Kilometre-scale, in review for JAMES

  2. Rackow, T., Koldunov, N., Lessig, C., Sandu, I., Alexe, M., Chantry, M., Clare, M., Dramsch, J., Pappenberger, F., Pedruzo-Bagazgoitia, X., Tietsche, S., and Jung, T: Robustness of AI-based weather forecasts in a changing climate, in review, preprint on arXiv

  3. Brunner, L., Ghosh, R., Haimberger, L., Hohenegger, C., Putrasahan, D., Rackow, T., Knutti, R., and Voigt, A.: First climate models simulate global surface temperature patterns indistinguishable from observations, submitted

  4. 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

  5. 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

  6. Poujol, B., Lee, J., Rackow, T., Rotach, M., and Ban, N.: Are the largest benefits of kilometer-scale climate models over mountains or over flatland? , in review for Geophysical Research Letters

Peer-reviewed publications

  1. Rackow, T., Pedruzo-Bagazgoitia, X., Becker, T., Milinski, S., Sandu, I., Aguridan, R., Bechtold, P., Beyer, S., Bidlot, J., Boussetta, S., Deconinck, W., Diamantakis, M., Dueben, P., Dutra, E., Forbes, R., Ghosh, R., Goessling, H. F., Hadade, I., Hegewald, J., Jung, T., Keeley, S., Kluft, L., Koldunov, N., Koldunov, A., Kölling, T., Kousal, J., Kühnlein, C., Maciel, P., Mogensen, K., Quintino, T., Polichtchouk, I., Reuter, B., Sármány, D., Scholz, P., Sidorenko, D., Streffing, J., Sützl, B., Takasuka, D., Tietsche, S., Valentini, M., Vannière, B., Wedi, N., Zampieri, L., and Ziemen, F. (2025): Multi-year simulations at kilometre scale with the Integrated Forecasting System coupled to FESOM2.5 and NEMOv3.4, Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 33–69, link

  2. Goessling, H.F., Rackow, T., and Jung, T. (2025): Recent global temperature surge intensified by record-low planetary albedo, Science 387,68-73, link / Science Editor’s summary / English press release / German press release / Bluesky thread

  3. 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

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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

  7. 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

  8. 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 / DOI / AWI press release in German / AWI press release in English

    2021

  9. 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 /

  10. 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 /

  11. 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

  12. 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

  13. 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

  14. 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

  15. 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

  16. 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

  17. 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

  18. 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

  19. 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

  20. 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

  21. 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

  22. 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

  23. 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

  24. 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

  25. 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

  26. 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

  27. 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

  28. 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

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

  1. Freshwater forcing from Greenland and Antarctica, Kenneth D Mankoff, Julie Arblaster, Jonathan L Bamber, Dustin Carroll, David Chandler, Matthew H England, Paul Holland, Nicolas Jourdain, Qian Li, Juliana Marson, Pierre Mathiot, Clive McMahon, Twila A Moon, Anna Olivé Abelló, Andrew G. Pauling, Thomas Rackow, Damien Ringeisen, and Gavin A Schmidt. Read the AGU abstract

  2. 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

  3. Contributing author for the BMBF Polarforschungsagenda, POLARREGIONEN IM WANDEL, Konzeptpapier des Mare:N-Begleitkreises PDF

  4. 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

  5. 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

Science Art

  1. Photo Gallery of some of my impressions from the MOSAiC expedition to the Arctic Ocean, gallery link

  2. 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
  1. Regional melting stripes for the Arctic and Antarctic based on data from NASA for 1979-2017

  1. Another “Flatten the Curve” illustration for Earth Day 2020 and the Scientists 4 Future Link / Instagram

  2. Illustration for the Sea Ice Drift Forecast Experiment (SIDFEx) Link / ECMWF’s twitter

  3. 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

  4. The (Drawn) Distributed Network Around Polarstern, MOSAiC Expedition Zenodo link

  5. MOSAiC farewell illustration for Polarstern and Akademik Fedorov leaving Tromso in September 2019 e.g. MOSAiC Mondays newsletter / Polarprediction
  6. Arctic sea ice decrease animation resembling the 1st ever image of a black hole
  7. Melting Stripes for Arctic and Antarctic sea ice Arctic / Antarctic
  8. “Breaking the ice” illustration for the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP) Link

Fieldwork

  1. 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

Panels and other responsibilities

nextGEMS Executive Board member

nextGEMS ECS representative

Scientific profiles / social media

ORCID iD iconhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-5468-575X

Scopus Author ID / Web Of Science ResearcherID / ResearchGate profile / Google Scholar profile / AWI ePIC repository / Twitter profile @thomas_rackow / LinkedIn / Loop