The brand new SKD team

Professor Tore Furevik

Director

The generous funding to the SKD from the Ministry of Education and Research has made it possibly to continue our scientific goal: to understand the underlying mechanisms of climate variability, climate change and its impacts. SKD is in many ways a continuation of the Bjerknes Centre of Excellence which developed as an internationally competitive climate research community here in Bergen during during the past decade.

I am proud to be part of SKD and lead this core team of young, talented scientists and research leaders. Despite strong international competition for the positions, they all have their background from the Bjerknes Centre, another evidence of the strong climate research community here in Bergen. And with the aid of the numerous skilled scientists from the partner institutions engaged in the SKD projects, I am confident we will push the climate science´s front foward and serve society at large.

Dr Beatriz Balino

Head of administration and research manager

I am responsible for the day-to-day administration of the centre and the management of finances. I liaise with the academic and administrative staff affiliated with the centre, i.e. IMR, UNI, NERSC and several UiB departments. I am the secretary to the board and I report to the director. 

As research manager, I assist the director and research leaders in the planning, implementation and reporting of the scientific strategy and activities of SKD. Providing services to SKD scientists regarding fund rising and research grants is one of my main duties.  I am also responsible for the Research Fellow Visiting Programme and contribute to SKD´s outreach.

We made the following inquiries to the research leaders

1.  What will your work focus on?
2. What do you want to achieve through SKD, and how will your research contribute to the centre´s vision?

And this is what they tell...

Dr Tor Eldevik 
Associate professor 

Research leader. Topic: Large-sale oceanography and decadal climate dynamics

The establishment of mechanistic frameworks and the identification of persistent cause-and-effects relating to the climate of the northern seas are at the heart of assessing decadal climate dynamics, and particularly that relating to climate prediction. To this end I will utilize the already well-established practice within the Bjerknes Centre of jointly scrutinizing the observational record and climate/ocean model simulations. In addition, I will increase the effort on explaining both observations (including paleo proxy data) and ocean/climate models with conceptual models. There is a large unrealized potential within the Bergen community with respect to the latter.

Dr Camille Li
Associate professor
Research leader. Topic: Large-scale atmospheric dynamics

My research is concerned with the large scale dynamics of the atmosphere and how its interactions with other components of the climate system (ocean, sea ice, land ice) drive climate variability over a wide range of time scales. SKD will bring together a breadth and depth of expertise in climate that will allow us to tackle some fundamental but as yet unresolved questions about how the climate system operates. This will be a stimulating environment for the type of research projects I'm interested in, which seek to explain climate phenomena, whether as observed in today's world or as recorded in paleoclimate archives.

Dr Kerim Nisancioglu
Associate professor

Research leader. Topic: Sensitivity and thresholds in the climate system

I will focus on the understanding the dynamics of past climate changes on millennial, orbital and tectonic time-scales. At the heart of climate research is a proper understanding of the past. In particular, the warm periods of the last 100 million years might give us clues as to the dynamics governing high- latitude climate and the response of the cryosphere to a future warmer world. Similarly, the last glacial cycle was interrupted by multiple abrupt warm events and despite well documented in the proxy records, the dynamics causing these events are still poorly understood. The elucidation of these fundamental questions will help us narrow the range of estimates of climate sensitivity as well as lend insight into the possibility of approaching thresholds in the climate system.

Dr Are Olsen
Associate professor

Research leader. Topic: The carbon cycle in the ocean and ocean acidification

I expect SKD to make an important contribution to the research on the carbon cycle. Proper tools and an understanding of the key processes must be in place in order to obtain reliable assessments of the current and future state of global biogeochemistry under a changing climate.  Key aspects of my research will be the sensitivity of the oceanic sink to the dynamics of the ocean circulation, past and present, and the impacts of ocean acidification on marine ecosystems. I will be active in the coordination of carbon observing systems with international partners; I envision SKD taking on a leading role here. I will also cooperate with the internationally acknowledged Bergen scientific community and their expertise in physical and chemical oceanography, marine biology and palaeoclimates. My ambition is to ensure SKD as a forum for cooperation of outstanding research communities in carbon cycle science, at the national and international levels.