Birgit Hünicke - Research Interests

Research Interests

G eneral information | Research Projects | PhD Thesis | Diploma Thesis

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General information

My research interests lie mainly in recent and future regional sea-level variability and its impact on the coast. I have experience in the statistical analysis of observational data, climate reconstructions and model data output on regional to global scales. As my first degree is in environmental engineering, I also have a strong interest in coastal engineering issues (especially beach erosion) and coastal zone management.

Within the last years I was involved in a DFG (Deutsche ForschungsGemeinschaft) project called SINCOS (Sinking Coasts -Geopshere, Ecosphere and Anthroposphere of the Holocene Southern Baltic Sea), in which my research focus lied on the estimation of the influence of regional climate on the past and future sea-level changes in the Baltic Sea with statistical methods and simulations of climate models. If you want to learn more about this multi-disciplinary research project, have a look into DFG Science TV.

I am working on an ongoing assessment of knowledge on sea-level change in the Baltic Sea, as this issue has become of increasing importance, especially in the context of anthropogenic global climate change. From recent experiences from communicating with regional stakeholders it has become very clear that this issue must be considered a major issue for stakeholders and the public in large (BALTEX Newsletter No 13, October 2009). To aid in literature searches, all collected publications relevant to Baltic sea-level are listed in the BALTEX Publication Library and searchable with the keyword ‘sea-level’. The inclusion of the articles in the BALTEX data bank began in October 2010 and will be continually updated.

In February 2010 I started my work in the national funded research project RADOST (Development of regional adaption strategies to climate change for the German Baltic Sea coast, within KLIMZUG). Here, my research focus lies on the regionalization of global climate change scenarios for wave conditions in the Baltic Sea. For more details visit the coastDat database of HZG, as this research will be performed within the Coastal Climate Group.

Although I left the Paleoclimate Group as official member, I stay with the group as ‘Associate’. Together with Eduardo Zorita, I am continuing the Baltic Sea related research. Our current research focuses on the question: Is Baltic Sea level rise accelerating?

Due to my former project SINCOS, I am involved as a collaborating scientist within the polish project COPAF (funded by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education, 2009-2012), which investigates the Coastline Changes for the southern Baltic Sea in terms of past and future projections.

I am Lead Author for the Chapter ‘Sea level and wind waves’ within the BACC II-Second BALTEX Assessment of Climate Change for the Baltic Sea Basin (which aims on organizing and publish an updated assessment by 2014) and a Member of the POSTBALTEX Working group (2011-2012) on drafting a Science Plan for a scientific research network following the BALTEX Phase II.

Furthermore, in 2011 I became involved in the Research network SPLASHCOS (Submerged Prehistoric Archaeology and Landscapes of the Continental Shelf), funded by the European Commission under its COST (Cooperation in Science and Technology) program (2009-2013). Here, I contribute to working group 2 ‘Environmental Data and Reconstructions’. This working group, chaired by Prof. Jan Harff, focuses on the assembling of data or sources of data on sea-level change, paleoclimate, bathymetry and related variables, assessing issues of site preservation and taphonomy.

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Research Projects

2011-2015	Climate Signals in Coastal Deposits (working title) (funded within HGF Portfoliothema ‚Regionaler Klimawandel: Ursachen und Folgen’)
2010-2013	Wave climate simulations and sea-level change in the Baltic Sea. -Developing regional adaptation strategies to climate change for the German Baltic Sea coast (RADOST, funded by the BmBF within KLIMZUG)
2009-2010	Overview of Knowledge about Sea-level Change in the Baltic Sea (in context of the BALTEX project) pdf
2007-2009	Relationships between Baltic Sea level variations and periods of rapid climate change in the Holocene as analogues for future changes (SINCOS II, funded by the DFG)
2003-2006	Estimation of the climatic influence on the past and future sea-level changes in the Baltic Sea with the help of statistical methods and simulations with state-of-the-art climate models (SINCOS I, funded by the DFG)
2002	Assessment of the current state of interaction between ecological and socio-economic development in the coastal region of Warnemünde-Rostock, German Baltic Sea: A decision support analysis for conflict management for stakeholder groups, with focus of dune and beach development. (funded by the city of Rostock)

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PhD Thesis

2008	Atmospheric forcing of decadal Baltic Sea level variability in the last 200 years: A statistical analysis.

My doctoral work was focused on the estimation of the impact of different atmospheric factors on the past sea-level variations (200 years b.p.) in the Baltic Sea by statistically analysing the relationship between Baltic Sea level records and observational and proxy-based reconstructed climatic data sets. The focus was on the identification and possible quantification of the contribution of sea-level pressure (wind), air-temperature and precipitation to the low-frequency (decadal and multi-decadal) variability of Baltic Sea level.

It is known that the wind forcing is the main factor explaining average Baltic Sea level variability at inter-annual to decadal timescales, especially in wintertime. In this thesis it is statistically estimated to what extent other regional climate factors contribute to the spatially heterogeneous Baltic Sea level variations around the isostatic trend at multi-decadal timescales. Although the statistical analysis cannot be completely conclusive, as the potential climate drivers are all statistically interrelated to some degree, the results indicate that precipitation should be taken into account as an explanatory variable for sea-level variations. On the one hand it has been detected that the amplitude of the annual cycle of Baltic Sea level has increased throughout the 20^th century and precipitation seems to be the only factor among those analysed (wind through SLP field, barometric effect, temperature and precipitation) that can account for this evolution. On the other hand, precipitation increases the ability to hindcast inter-annual variations of sea level in some regions and seasons, especially in the Southern Baltic in summertime. The mechanism by which precipitation exerts its influence on Baltic Sea level is not ascertained in this statistical analysis due to the lack of long salinity time series. This result, however, represents a working hypothesis that can be confirmed or disproved by long simulations of the Baltic Sea system - ocean, atmosphere and land.

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Diploma Thesis

2001	Study on coastal defence in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania with special emphasis on the effectiveness of beach nourishment. (in German)

The study provides a detailed review of coastal defence concerns for the German Baltic Sea coastline of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The main focus lies on the effectiveness of beach nourishment, a process by which sediment (sand) lost through longshore drift or erosion is replaced on a beach as a part of natural coastal defence scheme. To nourish a beach is often expensive and the costs are highly dependent on the source of the sandy material, which is used to replace the lost sediment on the beach. One major issue here is that the sand fill must be compatible with native beach sand, as the sediment texture (grain size and sorting) is critical for success. Another critical point is the initial profile slope of the nourished material. A natural beach has a so called equilibrium profile, whereas a nourished beach is usually steeper and represents a perturbation which is out of equilibrium. Once a beach is nourished, it is almost always is necessary to regularly renourish it since nourished beaches tend to erode faster than natural beaches. Thus, the study focuses mainly on the following beach nourishment issues: the source of sediment material (distance to the beach that is going to be nourished), the sediment texture in relation to the native beach sand, the beach profile and the interval of renourishment.
The study documents all beach nourishment projects which took place since 1960. Sediment sources were indicated and discussed in terms of texture and relative position to the nourished beach. The effectiveness of the beach nourishment is evaluated by considering the general coastline changes (erosion and accumulation), which are documented by airial photographs and old maps, covering the last 100 years and provide a reasonable basis for a comparison of time periods. In additions, the data was supplemented by performing grain size analyses for several beach profiles (with quite different sediment texture properties) to learn more about the allocation of nourished material after different time periods (month to years). Conclusions about the most effective sediment texture and beach profiles could be drawn. Most effective sediment sources (compromise resulting on best sediment texture, distance to the coast and the yield of the sediment reservoir) are pointed out and a monitoring program for the future is suggested.