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- Thomas Felis
Dr. Thomas Felis |
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Research Staff |
Group: |
MARUM Director |
Phone: |
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Fax: |
+49 421 218-65505 |
Email: |
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Room: |
MARUM I, 3080 |

Coordinator
DFG Priority Programme "Tropical Climate Variability and Coral Reefs" (SPP 2299)
Project leader
CoralHydro2k - PAGES (Past Global Changes) 2k Network
Expedition participant
International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP)
Expedition 325 - Great Barrier Reef Environmental Changes
Expedition 310 - Tahiti Sea Level
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
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
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
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
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
Conferences and workshops
Networking activities
CoralHydro2k - Tropical ocean hydroclimate and temperature from coral archives
Hargreaves J., K. DeLong, T. Felis, N. Abram, K. Cobb, and H. Sayani (2020), Tropical ocean hydroclimate and temperature from coral archives, Past Global Changes Magazine, 28(1), 29, https://doi.org/10.22498/pages.28.1.29
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

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

Zinke, J., M. Pfeiffer, and T. Felis (2018), Reconstructing climate and environment from coral archives, Eos, 99, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018EO096071.