Meinrat Andreae

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Meinrat O. Andreae (* 1949 in Augsburg ) is a German biogeochemist. Since 1987 he has been Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC) in Mainz , and in 2017 he retired.

Life

Andreae studied mineralogy / geochemistry at the universities in Karlsruhe and Göttingen. In his diploma thesis, he dealt with the chemical composition and isotope geochemistry of highly metamorphic rocks from southern Norway. In 1977 he completed his PhD in oceanography from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California , San Diego . In his doctoral thesis he investigated the chemical speciation of arsenic in the ocean. He found out that planktonic algae regulate the oxidation state of arsenic in seawater and synthesize a variety of organoarsenic compounds. A “by-product” of this work was the discovery that marine phytoplankton also produce the starting materials for the volatile sulfur compound dimethyl sulfide.

Meinrat O. Andreae taught at the Department of Oceanography at Florida State University from 1978 to 1987 , first as an assistant professor, then from 1982 to 1986 as an associate professor, and finally until 1987 as a full professor. During this time he researched the biogeochemical sulfur cycle in the ocean and in the atmosphere. Together with Robert Charlson , James Lovelock , and Steve Warren , he developed the CLAW hypothesis, named after the authors' initials . This states that dimethyl sulfide from the ocean is converted into sulfate particles in the atmosphere , which then influence the formation of clouds and thus the climate. Further work from this time dealt with the biogeochemical transformations of the compounds of arsenic, antimony , selenium , tellurium and tin in marine and terrestrial ecosystems.

In 1987 he was appointed director and scientific member of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC) in Mainz. There he headed the biogeochemistry department that was founded when he joined the institute . In the first few years he continued his work there on biogeochemical trace metal cycles and expanded his research on aerosol formation from marine sulfur emissions. Campaigns in the Amazon forest then led to a new focus, the biogeochemical exchange processes between tropical forests and the atmosphere. On expeditions to the Congo, the Amazon and southern Africa , he researched emissions from vegetation fires, the exchange of trace gases, and the production of biogenic aerosol particles. Since 2000, Andreae's research has focused on the role of the atmospheric aerosol in the climate system. Since 2009 he has led a working group in which methods of isotope geochemistry and mass spectrometry are applied to problems in paleoclimatology and marine biogeochemistry.

Meinrat O. Andreae taught as visiting professor at the University of Antwerp , the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, the University of California in Irvine and the California Institute for Technology in Pasadena. He is a member of the scientific steering committee of the "Large Scale Biosphere Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA)" and was chairman of the international scientific program IGBP "Integrated Land Ecosystem Atmospheric Processes Study (ILEAPS)". Meinrat O. Andreae is also involved as a reviewing editor for the journal “Science”. In 2010 he became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Ghent . In 2013 he was elected an honorary foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , for 2014 he was awarded the Waldo E. Smith Medal , for 2018 the Alfred Wegener Medal . He is a member of the Academia Europaea .

Meinrat O. Andreae and his colleagues have published around 500 articles in scientific journals and books.

research

The employees of the Department of Biogeochemistry at the MPIC primarily investigate (and in close collaboration with the Department of Atmospheric Chemistry) interactions between the atmosphere and the bio- or physiosphere of our planet. The substances introduced into the atmosphere by the biosphere (terrestrial and marine plants and animals), the physiosphere (soil and oceans) and humans are examined. Their return after partial transformation in the atmosphere is also being researched. The results of these investigations contribute to an understanding of global material cycles. They are also used to understand the very complex and globally coupled climate processes. With the help of model calculations, the partly sustainable influence of mankind on these processes and the resulting consequences can then be estimated.

literature

  • Max Planck Society: Manual of Scientific Members, Munich 2006

Web links

Video

personal data
SURNAME Andreae, Meinrat
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Andreae, Meinrat O.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German biogeochemist
DATE OF BIRTH 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH augsburg