Katrin Meissner

Katrin Juliane Meissner is a German and Australian physical oceanographer and climate scientist.

Meissner completed an engineering degree at the Ecole Centrale de Lille in 1995, a Diplôme d'Etudes Approfondies, at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris VI, France in 1996, and a Doctor of Physics (PhD) at the Universität Bremen, Germany in 1999. In 2000, she received the Annette Barthelt Prize for outstanding research in the field of marine science.

Meissner became an Assistant Professor at the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, Canada, in 2002. In 2009, she moved to the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. Her relocation from a tenure-track position in Victoria was in part due to the long term issues of reduced funding for climate change science across Canada.

In 2010, she was awarded an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship. She is currently the Director of the Climate Change Research Centre.

In 2015, she was one of the featured scientists in Joe Duggan's project about emotions in the work of scientists focused on climate change.

In June 2018, she was a co-author of a paper in Nature Geoscience which posited that current model-based climate projections could be greatly underestimating the rate of warming.

Research interests

Meissner researches abrupt climate change events, and thresholds and feedbacks in the climate system using Earth System Climate Models together with palaeoclimate records to increase understanding of the basic mechanisms of climate variability and climate change, particularly in the context of terrestrial biogeochemical cycles and ocean circulation.

The work of her and her team developed model studies on rapid climate changes in Australia.

Positions held

Meissner currently holds the following positions:

• Director of the Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (since February 2017)
• Professor at the Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (since June 2018)
• Adjunct Professor at the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, Canada (since December 2009)
• Courtesy Faculty Member at the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, USA (since August 2004)
• Member of the PAGES Executive Committee (EXCOM)
• Member of the PAGES Scientific Steering Committee (SSC)
• Member of the Environmental Research Letters (ERL) Executive Board

• Fischer, H.; Meissner, K.J.; Mix, A. C.; Abram, N.J.; Austermann, J.; Brovkin, V.; Capron, E.; Colombaroli, D.; Daniau, A.-L.; Dyez, K.A.; Felis, T.; Finkelstein, S.A.; Jaccard, S.L.; McClymont, E.L.; Rovere, A.; Sutter, J.; Wolff, E.W.; Affolter, S.; Bakker, P.; Ballesteros-Cánovas, J.A.; Barbante, C.; Caley, T.; Carlson, A.E.; Churakova (Sidorova), O.; Cortese, G.; Cumming, B.F.; Davis, B.A.D.; de Vernal, A.; Emile-Geay, J.; Fritz, S.C.; Gierz, P.; Gottschalk, J.; Holloway, M.D.; Joos, F.; Kucera, M.; Loutre, M.-F.; Lunt, D.J.; Marcisz, K.; Marlon, J.R.; Martinez, P.; Masson-Delmotte, V.; Nehrbass-Ahles, C.; Otto-Bliesner, B.; Raible, C.C.; Risebrobakken, B.; Sánchez Goñi, M.F.; Saleem Arrigo, J.; Sarnthein, M.; Sjolte, J.; Stocker, T.F.; Velasquez Alvárez, P.A.; Tinner, W.; Valdes, P.J.; Vogel, H.; Wanner, H.; Yan, Q.; Yu, Z.; Ziegler, M.; Zhou L. (2018). "Palaeoclimate constraints on the impact of 2 °C anthropogenic warming and beyond" (PDF). Nature Geoscience. 11 (7): 474–485. Bibcode:2018NatGe..11..474F. doi:10.1038/s41561-018-0146-0.
• Menviel, L.; Spence, P.; Yu, J.; Chamberlain, M.A.; Matear, R.J.; Meissner, K.J.; England M.H. (2018). "Southern Hemisphere westerlies as a driver of the early deglacial atmospheric CO2 rise". Nature Communications. 9 (1): 2503. doi:10.1038/s41467-018-04876-4. PMC 6021399. PMID 29950652.
• Meissner, K.J.; Bralower, T.J. (2017). "Palaeoclimate: Volcanism caused ancient global warming". Nature. 548 (7669): 531–533. Bibcode:2017Natur.548..531M. doi:10.1038/548531a. PMID 28858315.
• Meissner, K.J. (2015). "Palaeoclimate: The dynamics of cold events". Nature Geoscience. 8 (12): 904–906. Bibcode:2015NatGe...8..904M. doi:10.1038/ngeo2564.
• Alexander, K.; Meissner, K.J.; Bralower, T.J. (2015). "Sudden spreading of corrosive bottom water during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum". Nature Geoscience. 8 (6): 458–461. Bibcode:2015NatGe...8..458A. doi:10.1038/ngeo2430.
• Meissner, K.J.; Lippmann, T.; Sen Gupta, A. (2012). "Large-scale stress factors affecting coral reefs: open ocean sea surface temperature and surface seawater aragonite saturation over the next 400 years". Coral Reefs. 31 (2): 309–319. Bibcode:2012CorRe..31..309M. doi:10.1007/s00338-011-0866-8.
• Avis, C.A.A.; Weaver, A.J.; Meissner, K.J. (2011). "Evolution of high-latitude wetlands in response to permafrost thaw". Nature Geoscience. 4 (7): 444–448. doi:10.1038/ngeo1160.
• Eby, M.; Montenegro, A.; Archer, D.; Meissner, K.J. (2009). "Lifetime of anthropogenic climate change: Millennial time-scales of potential CO2 and surface temperature perturbations". Journal of Climate. 22 (7): 2501–2511. doi:10.1038/ngeo1160.
• Meissner, K.J.; Weaver, A.J.; Matthews, H.D.; Cox, P.M. (2003). "The role of land-surface dynamics in glacial inception: a study with the UVic Earth System Model". Climate Dynamics. 21: 515–537. doi:10.1007/s00382-003-0352-2.