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Dr. Thomas Felis

Research Staff

Group: 

Coral Paleoclimatology

Phone: 

+49 421 218-65751

Fax:

+49 421 218-65505

Email:

Room: 

MARUM I, 3080

Thomas Felis
 

Head

Coral Paleoclimatology

 

Coordinator

DFG Priority Programme "Tropical Climate Variability & Coral Reefs" (SPP 2299)

 

Project leader

CoralHydro2k - PAGES (Past Global Changes) 2k Network

 

Extension of instrumental climate records using tropical and subtropical coral archives

I am using annually-banded shallow-water corals to reconstruct ongoing and past changes in temperature and hydroclimate across the tropics to subtropics. I am interested in ocean-atmosphere interactions at timescales from seasons to decades, from millennia to hundred thousands of years. By using modern corals of the past decades to centuries and fossil corals of the Holocene, the last glacial and interglacial, my research focuses on modes of climate variability and integrates coral paleoclimate data with climate model output to understand processes driving past and future climate change.

 

Selected Publications

Brachert, TC, Felis, T, Gagnaison, C, Hoehle, M, Reuter, M and Spreter, PM (2022) Slow-growing reef corals as climate archives: A case study of the Middle Eocene Climatic Optimum 40 Ma ago. Science Advances, 8(20). eabm3875. doi:10.1126/sciadv.abm3875

Felis, T, Hinestrosa, G, Köhler, P and Webster, JM (2022) Role of the deglacial buildup of the Great Barrier Reef for the Global carbon cycle. Geophysical Research Letters, 49(4). e2021GL096495. doi:10.1029/2021GL096495

Felis, T (2020) Extending the instrumental record of ocean-atmosphere variability into the last interglacial using tropical corals. Oceanography, 33(2). 68-79. doi:10.5670/oceanog.2020.209

Felis, T, Ionita, M, Rimbu, N, Lohmann, G and Kölling, M (2018) Mild and arid climate in the eastern Sahara-Arabian Desert during the late Little Ice Age. Geophysical Research Letters, 45. 7112-7119. doi:10.1029/2018GL078617 PANGAEA Supplementary Data

Felis, T, Giry, C, Scholz, D, Lohmann, G, Pfeiffer, M, Pätzold, J, Kölling, M and Scheffers, SR (2015) Tropical Atlantic temperature seasonality at the end of the last interglacial. Nature Communications, 6. 6159. doi:10.1038/ncomms7159 PANGAEA Supplementary Data

Felis, T, McGregor, HV, Linsley, BK, Tudhope, AW, Gagan, MK, Suzuki, A, Inoue, M, Thomas, AL, Esat, TM, Thompson, WG, Tiwari, M, Potts, DC, Mudelsee, M, Yokoyama, Y and Webster, JM (2014) Intensification of the meridional temperature gradient in the Great Barrier Reef following the Last Glacial Maximum. Nature Communications, 5. 4102. doi:10.1038/ncomms5102 PANGAEA Supplementary Data

Felis, T, Merkel, U, Asami, R, Deschamps, P, Hathorne, EC, Kölling, M, Bard, E, Cabioch, G, Durand, N, Prange, M, Schulz, M, Cahyarini, SY and Pfeiffer, M (2012) Pronounced interannual variability in tropical South Pacific temperatures during Heinrich Stadial 1. Nature Communications, 3. 965. doi:10.1038/ncomms1973 PANGAEA Supplementary Data

Felis, T, Lohmann, G, Kuhnert, H, Lorenz, SJ, Scholz, D, Pätzold, J, Al-Rousan, S and Al-Moghrabi, SM (2004) Increased seasonality in Middle East temperatures during the last interglacial period. Nature, 429(6988). 164-168. doi:10.1038/nature02546 PANGAEA Supplementary Data

 
 

Networking activities


DFG Priority Programme "Tropical Climate Variability & Coral Reefs" (SPP 2299)

SPP 2299 Status Seminar 2023
More than 40 re­search­ers of the DFG Pri­or­ity Pro­gramme “Trop­ical Cli­mate Vari­ab­il­ity & Coral Reefs” (SPP 2299) met for their first Status Seminar just be­fore the end of the year 2023, char­ac­ter­ized by re­cord global tem­per­at­ures, re­gional weather ex­tremes, an un­usu­ally early on­set of coral bleach­ing in the At­lantic and an evolving El Niño in the trop­ical Pa­cific.
SPP 2299 1st Topical Meeting, Bremen, 2023
More than 50 re­search­ers and international guests of the DFG Pri­or­ity Pro­gramme “Trop­ical Cli­mate Vari­ab­il­ity & Coral Reefs” (SPP 2299) discussed thermal stress sig­na­tures in the geo­chem­istry of coral skel­et­ons and the role of tem­per­at­ure vari­ab­il­ity in cor­als sus­cept­ib­il­ity to bleach­ing.
SPP 2299 Kick-off Seminar, Bremen, 2022
More than 40 researchers from all over Germany met for the Kick-off Seminar of the DFG Priority Programme "Tropical Climate Variability & Coral Reefs" (SPP 2299), which aims to improve our understanding of tropical marine climate variability and its impacts on coral reef ecosystems in a warming world.

Tropical coral archives – Reconstructions of climate and environment beyond the instrumental record at societally-relevant timescales

Round Table (Rundgespräch), German Research Foundation (DFG), Bremen, January 29-30, 2018

DFG-Rundgespraech_TropicalCoralArchives_2018
More than 30 scientists from Germany, Austria and Switzerland discussed future collaborative research in the field of "Tropical corals as climate archives".

Session & Workshop at International Conference 'GeoBremen 2017', September 24-29, 2017

CoralWorkshopBremen2017
38 scientists from 8 countries discussed latest research in the field of "Tropical corals as climate archives"