Matthias is an atmospheric dynamicist who previousely worked in Rossby wave dynamics. In his previous work he was interested in persistent weather situations and how they foster the occurrence and duration of extreme weather events. He studied atmospheric blocking as well as the dynamics of synoptic-scale Rossby wave during episodes of particularly persistent surface weather.

Within the INTEXseas project, Matthias currently investigates extreme seasons in a large ensemble of Community Earth System Model (CESM) simulations. He is interested in comparing statistical and dynamical properties of observed extreme seasons (i.e., occurring within re-analysis data) and in climate model data. To this end, he collaborates with Mauro Hermann and Heini Wernli to develop a variable-independent definition of spatially coherent extreme season objects. Moreover, he applies weather feature identification algorithms originally developed for re-analysis data to the climate model output. Together, the extreme season and weather feature objects will allow for statistical characterizations of the dynamical drivers of extreme seasons in present-day and end-of-the-century climate simulations.

In a first INTEXseas study, Matthias collaborated with various INTEXseas members to asses the substructure of extremely hot summers in re-analysis and climate model data. More on that here…