Karina von Schuckmann, oceanographer and expert in the ocean-climate relationship at Mercator Ocean, is interested in the Earth’s energy imbalance and has highlighted the ocean’s incredible storage capacity.
“Women oceanographers (10/12). They have made the ocean their object of study, sometimes even their main concern.Physicists, chemists, geologists or biologists, they all contribute to improving our knowledge of the marine environment. océans connectés sets out to meet them across France.
by Marion Durand
Cover photo © Marion Durand
If we know a little more about the essential role played by the ocean in climate change, it’s partly thanks to her: Karina von Schuckmann. The German-born oceanographer is interested in the interactions between the ocean and the climate. Her work, described as ‘revolutionary’ by her peers, has made it possible to quantify the current state and future prospects of global warming. She is particularly interested in the Earth’s energy imbalance: “Under normal, undisturbed conditions, the Earth sends back to space the same amount of energy as it receives from the sun, giving a virtual balance between the energy entering the Earth’s climate system through solar radiation and the energy leaving it. But today, with climate change, less energy is leaving the Earth. Last November,the oceanographer was awarded the Gérard Mégie Prize by the French Academy of Sciences for his research on this subject.
If Karina von Schuckmann’s works are groundbreaking, it is because it has made it possible to quantify the cumulative warming in all components of the Earth system. “90% of this excess energy is stored in the oceans, 5% in the continents, 1% in the atmosphere and 4% has caused the cryosphere to melt.
A study published in the journal Earth System Science Data has shown that over the last fifteen years, accumulated heat has increased by almost 50% compared to the heat accumulated over the last 50 years. This warming has led, for example, to a rise in sea level, changes in oceanic and atmospheric circulation patterns, and negative effects on marine ecosystems.‘This publication raises many questions about climate monitoring, as it is important to clarify adaptation measures to anticipate the changes that will be triggered by this surplus.’
The origin of this excess heat is clearly attributed to human activities: anthropogenic emissions (greenhouse gases, aerosols and their precursors) have led to global warming over several decades, causing this imbalance in the Earth’s energy balance. Karina von Schuckmann is campaigning for ‘this energy imbalance to be taken into account in the global balance of the Paris Agreement’, because the objectives of the agreement signed in 2015 do not currently take it into account. Yet it is ‘the most fundamental global climate indicator that the scientific community and the public can use to measure the world’s ability to control anthropogenic climate change’.
Karina von schuckmann © Marion Durand
Co-author of the IPCC report
“The ocean is a sentinel for global warming. If the Earth warms up, so does the ocean. We know that temperatures are rising from the surface to the depths. The aim of our research is to understand whether this warming is accelerating and to what extent’, explains the scientist.
Karina von Schuckmann has been working for eight years at Mercator Ocean International, an ocean analysis and forecasting centre based in Toulouse and specialising in the preservation of the oceans and the sustainable use of its resources.
As well as research, this expert in ocean-climate interaction is responsible for scientific coordination. In particular, she is in charge of writing the Copernicus report on the ocean, produced as part of the Copernicus Marine Service, a European ocean monitoring programme that provides free and open data for scientists, decision-makers and the general public. Each year, this publication provides an overview of the state, variability and change of the world’s oceans. Karina von Schuckmann coordinates the editorial team, which includes no fewer than 150 international researchers.
The next report, due out in September 2024, will include a new chapter devoted to ocean indicators. “It will be a snapshot of the state of the ocean. We’ll have a range of information, updated every year, on surface temperature, the state of sea ice, ocean acidification, ocean variability, global circulation, etc.’, explains the physicist.
Lead author of the first chapter of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) special report on the ocean and cryosphere, Karina von Schuckmann also wrote the section on oceans in the sixth assessment report, published in 2021. She has also contributed to the IOC-UNESCO World Ocean Report and the World Meteorological Organisation’s 2019 Climate Declaration. At just 46, the world-renowned oceanographer has been inducted into the European Academy of Sciences.
To raise awareness among politicians and the general public, the physicist is on all fronts. For several years now, she has been taking part in various COPs and conferences such as Monaco Ocean Week, as well as taking part in meetings to prepare for the United Nations Conference on the Oceans, a major event to be held in Nice in 2025. “My role is to improve scientific knowledge and share it with politicians, decision-makers and the general public. The ocean plays a fundamental role, not only for the climate but also for society. It shows us the next steps we will have to take as a result of global warming.
From Kiel to Brest
Young Karina grew up in Maring-Noviand in the Moselle region of Germany. It was in this small village, far from the sea, that she chose to devote her life to marine research. “Where does this passion come from? I don’t really know. From within, I think, I’ve always been fascinated by the ocean’.
She discovered oceanography by chance, during a post-bac interview with the organisation in charge of employment in Germany. I took a placement test and the result said I was going to be a police commissioner,’ she laughs. But it was at this agency that I came across a small poster about being an oceanographer. I asked around, bought a book on the subject and loved it. She went on to study physics and mathematics at the Christian-Albrechts University in Kiel, northern Germany, specialising in physical oceanography in her third year. As part of a thesis on intraseasonal variability in the tropical Atlantic Ocean, she joined GEOMAR, a German oceanographic institute, but soon left for France.
The young researcher returned to France in 2007, heading for the tip of Brittany. In Brest, the oceanographer joined Ifremer towork on the global variability of the oceans thanks to the brand new data collected by the Argo floats. I didn’t think I’d be here for long, but in the end I fell in love with France and did everything I could to stay’, she confides. She went on to work at theMediterranean Institute of Oceanology at the University of Toulon. Today, Karina von Schuckmann is enjoying life in Toulouse and has no plans to leave the pink city. As the mother of two children aged 10 and 13, she visits schools in the department to raise awareness of the need to protect the oceans. “Young people are aware of the problem, they understand what’s at stake. As soon as I have the opportunity to share information about the ocean, I do it, because that’s also our role as oceanographers.
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