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Eelco Rohling has been appointed Professor of Ocean and Climate Change at the department of Earth Sciences Faculty at the faculty Geosciences as of 15 April 2024.

How can we use our knowledge of past climate change to address today’s climate crisis?

Research expertise

“I’m mainly interested in understanding natural climate changes”, explains Eelco Rohling. “How fast did they occur? What were the dominant processes? And how did they influence life on Earth? An important aspect of that is the fact that the large, natural peaks in atmospheric CO₂ levels we’ve observed in the past were all tidied up by natural processes. That raises the question: how can we better understand those processes, and use them to suppress the current peak in CO₂? And would that be sufficient? Because CO₂ is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever before. There are both natural and technological ways to remove and sequester CO₂ from the atmosphere for a long period. The natural processes have been active on earth at a massive scale for aeons. But they take many thousands of years, with countless feedback loops that reduce efficiency. To achieve the Paris Agreement targets, we’ll have to accelerate these processes and make them more efficient, but also ensure that they’re safe. An important part of my research involves quantifying these options based on natural climate cycles in the past.” 

Education

“We’re still not sure what my teaching duties will look like”, says Rohling. “But I think I can make a good contribution by serving as a mentor for young researchers, like PhD candidates, postdocs and new staff members. How should you position yourself in your field of research? How do you decide on a strategic line? In short: how can you improve your chances and build a solid network? I had to learn all of that myself when I was a young researcher, so I’d like to share that knowledge with the next generation.”

Experience

Eelco Rohling completed his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ��, and earned his PhD here too. He went on to work as a postdoc with NWO in Utrecht, in collaboration with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. From there, he moved to Southampton to work as a lecturer, and was promoted to full Professor in 2002. In early 2013, he went to the Australian National ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� for an Australian Laureate Fellowship in sea-level change and climate sensitivity, studying the climate of the past, present and future. While there, he began working on potential solutions to the climate problem as well. 

Dean of Geosciences, Wilco Hazeleger: “Eelco’s work is vital for our faculty, for our field, and for society at large. He will link the excellent science conducted at our faculty in the field of paleoclimates to the climate of today, and to future climate change.”