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Levke Caesar

Research Interests

  • As a climate physicist with a special interests in Physical Oceanography I study the climate of the North Atlantic and in particular the evolution of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). In the past I have been focused on determining the evolution of the AMOC over the 20th Century (see Caesar et al., 2018 and Caesar et al., 2021), but I am also very interested in both the future evolution of the AMOC and its impact on the Earth System.
Academic Education  
09/2015 – 09/2019 PhD in Climate Physics, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
and the University of Potsdam, Germany
Supervisors: Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf, Dr. Georg Feulner
Topic: “The evolution of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and its implications for surface warming”.
10/2013 – 07/2015 M.Sc. in Physics
University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
Supervisors: Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf, Dr. Georg Feulner and Dr. Dim Coumou
Topic: “Testing and tuning the Potsdam Earth Model POEM”
10/2012 – 09/2013 Study of Climate Physics at the Helmoltz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and the University of Kiel, Germany.
10/2009 – 09/2012 B.Sc. in Physics
University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
Supervisors: Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf and Dr. Dim Coumou on
Topic: “A statistical analysis of the July 2010 heat record in western Russia”,
Scientific Positions  
10/2022 –now Post-Doctoral Researcher at MARUM/Bremen University as part of the EPOC project – Explaining and Predicting the Ocean Conveyer - funded by the European Union and led by PI Prof. Dr. Eleanor Frajka-Williams.
10/2019 – 10-2022 Post-Doctoral Researcher in the Department of Geography/ICARUS as part of the A4 project - Oceans, Climate, and Atlantic Change - funded by the Marine Institute and led by PI Dr. Gerard McCarthy.
09/2015 – 09/2019 Research Assistant, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
under Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf.
Publications
Caesar, L, McCarthy, GD, Thornalley, DJR, Cahill N, Rahmstorf S. (2022), Reply to: Atlantic circulation change still uncertain. Nature Geoscience 15, 168–170, doi:10.1038/s41561-021-00699-z.
Garcia-Soto C, Cheng L, Caesar L, Schmidtko S, Jewett EB, Cheripka A, et al. (2021), An Overview of Ocean Climate Change Indicators: Sea Surface Temperature, Ocean Heat Content, Ocean pH, Dissolved Oxygen Concentration, Arctic Sea Ice Extent, Thickness and Volume, Sea Level and Strength of the AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation). Frontiers in Marine Science 2021;8(1266), doi:10.3389/fmars.2021.642372.
Caesar L, McCarthy GD, Thornalley DJR, Cahill N, Rahmstorf S. Current Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation weakest in last millennium. Nature Geoscience, 14(3):118-20, doi:10.1038/s41561-021-00699-z.
Caesar L, Rahmstorf S, Feulner G. (2021), Reply to the Comment on ‘On the relationship between Atlantic meridional overturning circulation slowdown and global surface warming’. Environmental Research Letters, 16(3):038002, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/abc776.
Garcia-Soto C, Caesar L, Cazenave A, Cheng L, Cheripka A, Durack P, et al. (2021), World Ocean Assessment II, Chapter 05, Trends in the physical and chemical state of the ocean, New York: United Nations.
Caesar L, Rahmstorf S, Feulner G. (2020), On the relationship between Atlantic meridional overturning circulation slowdown and global surface warming. Environmental Research Letters, 15(2):024003, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ab63e3.
Kurths J, Agarwal A, Shukla R, Marwan N, Rathinasamy M, Caesar L, et al. (2019), Unravelling the spatial diversity of Indian precipitation teleconnections via a non-linear multi-scale approach. Nonlin Processes Geophys., 26(3):251-66, doi:10.5194/npg-26-251-2019.
Agarwal A, Caesar L, Marwan N, Maheswaran R, Merz B, Kurths J. (2019), Network-based identification and characterization of teleconnections on different scales. Scientific Reports, 9(1):8808, doi:10.1038/s41598-019-45423-5.
Agarwal A, Maheswaran R, Marwan N, Caesar L, Kurths J. (2018), Wavelet-based multiscale similarity measure for complex networks. The European Physical Journal B. 91(11):296, doi:10.1140/epjb/e2018-90460-6.
Caesar L, Rahmstorf S, Robinson A, Feulner G, Saba V. (2018), Observed fingerprint of a weakening Atlantic Ocean overturning circulation. Nature. 556(7700):191-6, Highlighted by Summer Praetorius in Nature 556, 180-181, 2018, doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0006-5.
Totz S, Eliseev AV, Petri S, Flechsig M, Caesar L, Petoukhov V, et al. (2018), The dynamical core of the Aeolus 1.0 statistical–dynamical atmosphere model: validation and parameter optimization. Geosci Model Dev. 11(2):665-79, doi:10.5194/gmd-11-665-2018.
Olson R, An SI, Fan Y, Evans JP, Caesar L. (2017), North Atlantic observations sharpen meridional overturning projections. Climate Dynamics, 50, 4171-4188, doi:10.1007/s00382-017-3867-7.