ERC Starting Grant for group leader Alexander J. Winkler at MPI for Biogeochemistry

One of the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grants is awarded to Dr. Alexander J. Winkler at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, for his research in the field of Earth and climate system sciences. This five-year funding will propel Winkler’s research on modeling the global climate-carbon cycle system. The project aims to illuminate the dynamics in the Earth system as it moves toward and beyond peak atmospheric CO₂ levels.

Imagine the year 2050: The past decade has been marked by severe climate disruptions. However, through concerted international efforts, the Paris Agreement and subsequent accords have taken hold. Global society is on the verge of achieving deep decarbonization, with global CO₂ emissions expected to peak. Yet, as the world transitions into the post-peak CO₂ era, climatic conditions are deteriorating, particularly for global ecosystems and agricultural food production. This troubling scenario, sometimes referred to as a "climate trap", presents a paradox: the benefits of reduced emissions are not immediately apparent and may instead first lead to harsher conditions, creating a critical period of uncertainty for climate, ecosystems, and society.

The land carbon cycle will play a decisive role in this transition to the post-peak era. Through the development of new techniques to represent ecosystems in Earth system models that build on the abundance of ever-expanding observations, the awarded ERC project POSTPEAK spearheads a comprehensive modeling effort to unravel the dynamics of the climate-carbon cycle system, tracing the full path from pre-industrial equilibrium to potential futures. In that project, machine-learning enhanced models will elucidate the resulting spectrum of carbon cycle legacy effects heading into the post-peak era. Ultimately the project will identify critical hysteresis effects and their impacts on ecosystems under potential dynamics that will shape the not-too-distant future of our planet.

Why should we study what will happen once CO₂ levels start to decline, while they are still surging?, is a question often raised to Winkler. “The carbon we emit today will have lasting climate effects in the future, with some impacts unfolding only after we reach peak CO₂ and beyond. So, we need the science of the post-peak era now for today's decisions that will shape our planet's future long after peak CO₂.” summarizes Alexander Winkler.

Project funded by the ERC Starting Grant:

POSTPEAK: How Land Carbon Dynamics Shape the Rise and Fall of Atmospheric CO₂

Scientific career of Alexander Winkler

Alexander Winkler studied Integrated Climate System Sciences at the University of Hamburg, obtaining his doctoral degree in Geoscience and Earth System Modeling at the Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology and the University of Hamburg in 2019.  In close collaboration with Boston University, his doctoral research focused on the causes of the satellite-recorded Earth’s greening trend and what it tells us about the changing climate system. After a short postdoctoral position within the "Climate, Climatic Change, and Society" (CLICCS) Cluster of Excellence in Hamburg, he joined the Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena as part of the ERC Synergy Grant "Understanding and Modelling the Earth System with Machine Learning" (USMILE). Since 2021, he leads the research group "Atmosphere-Biosphere Coupling, Climate, and Causality" within the Department of Biogeochemical Integration of the director Markus Reichstein. In 2022, Alexander was awarded the Feodor-Lynen Fellowship from the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation, enabling collaborative research stays within the group of Prof. Dr. Ralph Keeling at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego.

Grants of the European Research Council

The European Research Council was established by the European Union in 2007 as the first European funding organization dedicated to excellent frontier research. Each year, the ERC selects and funds the most outstanding and innovative researchers to establish their own independent research teams or programs in Europe. The ERC offers four primary funding programs: Starting Grants, Consolidator Grants, Advanced Grants, and Synergy Grants.