CEN - Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability

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Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability
category Research center of the University of Hamburg
Location Hamburg
Type of research Basic research
subjects Natural and social sciences
Director Detlef Stammer
Homepage www.cen.uni-hamburg.de

The Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN) is a central research center of the University of Hamburg (UHH). Researchers from twelve different areas of natural and social sciences work together on an interdisciplinary basis. They deal with climate, environmental and earth system research and work together on overarching issues. The interrelationships between ocean, atmosphere, biosphere and geosphere and the natural and man-made changes in the earth system are in the foreground. At the same time, scientists analyze the interactions between society and the environment.

Research areas

The researchers at CEN work on an interdisciplinary basis and come from the fields of oceanography, meteorology, marine biology, geophysics, geology, soil science, geography, biogeochemistry as well as economics and social sciences. The research is divided into the following departments:

  • Earth system dynamics
  • Sustainability strategies and social dynamics
  • Potential area

The Earth System creates and expands the scientific basis for the study of Erdsystemwandels and its effects. The aim is to separate the natural variability in the various components of the earth system from man-made influences. The work ranges from the global to the regional and local scale.

The area of sustainability strategies and social dynamics is about the interactions between humans and nature. The underlying processes are researched and sustainable design options for society are developed.

The potential area comprises three different subject areas. It is about the importance of soils in our climate system and about sustainable food systems. The researchers also deal with climate and geohazards that include both natural hazards and human activity.

For their research, the scientists develop their own models or use models from other scientific institutions. Conversely, international teams use the Hamburg models to perform or supplement their calculations, to compare and check results.

CEN regularly participates in large national and international research programs and coordinates some of them in a leading role. CEN researchers publish regularly in scientific journals.

Cluster of Excellence

As part of the excellence strategy of the federal government and the federal states, three excellence clusters of the CEN at the University of Hamburg have been approved or funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). From 2007 the CliSAP 1 and 2 CliSAP 1 and 2 (Integrated Climate System Analysis and Prediction) clusters of excellence for 10 years . Since 2019 the Cluster of Excellence for Climate Research “Climate, Climatic Change, and Society” (CLICCS) for an initial seven years .

structure

The director of the CEN is Detlef Stammer, who forms the board of directors together with managing director Anke Allner and six university lecturers from various research fields. The CEN was founded in 2011 as a research center of the MIN faculty of the University of Hamburg. Since April 2016 it has been a “central research center of the University of Hamburg for the performance of tasks of particular importance in research and teaching”.

CEN School SICSS

The SICCS (School of Integrated Earth and Climate System Sciences) offers a two-year English-language curriculum that concludes with a Master's (MSc) and covers comprehensive aspects of climate research, from the natural sciences to the social sciences and economics. The graduate school offers a three-year international doctoral program in integrated climate and earth system sciences leading to a PhD.

Research institutions

Members of CEN have access to a number of research institutions, some of which are operated by CEN itself and its member institutes:

  • Control center for German research vessels at UHH
  • High-performance computer from the German Climate Computing Center (DKRZ)
  • Integrated Climate Data Center (ICDC) at UHH
  • Visualization Laboratory at CEN
  • Integrated Modeling Activities (IMA) at CEN
  • Wind tunnel laboratory at the Meteorological Institute
  • Weather mast Hamburg at the Meteorological Institute
  • Libraries
  • Central IT service provider: CEN-IT
  • Precision engineering workshop together with the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M)

Institutions involved

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.uni-hamburg.de/forschung/forschungsprofil/forschungszentren/universitaer.html
  2. ↑ https://www.cen.uni-hamburg.de/research.html
  3. ↑ https://www.cen.uni-hamburg.de/research/publications-cen.html
  4. ↑ https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/38787541?context=projekt&task=showDetail&id=38787541&
  5. ↑ https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/390683824
  6. ↑ https://www.cen.uni-hamburg.de/education1/cen-school.html
  7. ↑ https://www.cen.uni-hamburg.de/facilities.html