Anders Levermann

Prof. Anders Levermann, PhD is a Professor of the Dynamics of Climate System at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the Institute of Physics at the University of Potsdam. Since 2015, he is an affiliated Senior Research Scientist at Columbia University in New York, and has been a department head at the Potsdam Institute since 2012.

Anders Levermann studied physics in Marburg, Kiel and Berlin, specializing in statistical physics and chaos theory. From 2000 to 2003, he earned his doctorate in theoretical physics at the Weizmann Institute in Israel. His doctoral thesis dealt with fractal fracture and growth processes.

The climate scientist Anders Levermann focuses on the tipping of complex natural and societal systems, i.e. abrupt changes with strong impacts on nature and society. Thus, he has a high-profile publication record in theoretical physics, climatology, meteorology, oceanography, glaciology, societal adaptation and climate economics making him one of the world's leading experts on sea level change. Anders has led the development of the ice sheet model PISM, and contributes since 2004 to the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

As head of the research department Complexity Science, Anders Levermann is dedicated to research on the economic consequences of weather extremes and their impacts by climate change. To this end, he also heads the development of the unique agent-based economic damage-propagation model for global production and supply network ACCLIMATE at PIK.

Anders Levermann has published more than 140 scientific papers in journals such as Nature, Science and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, as well as numerous articles in newspapers such as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Süddeutsche, the Huffington Post, the Guardian and the Economist. At the same time he engages thoroughly in the public discourse on climate change and he advises representatives from politics and business on climate change issues via policy briefings, distinct talks and a broad range of media contributions.