Florian Börgel

OS Ocean Sciences

The 2023 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award is awarded to Florian Börgel for outstanding research in the field of long-term climate variability influence on regional seas.

Florian Börgel submitted his PhD thesis on the long-term climate variability of the Baltic Sea at the end of 2020, and defended his thesis summa cum laude at the University of Rostock, Germany. Florian Börgel completed his doctorate in record time. His work showed for the first time that internal climate variability in the Baltic Sea region is more significant than previously assumed, and that changes in the circulation system of the North Atlantic directly impact the Baltic Sea. In his effectively two years as PhD candidate at the Leibniz-Institut für Ostseeforschung Warnemünde (IOW), he contributed to five scientific publications, with two as a lead author. This shows the exceptional scientific productivity of Florian Börgel. In addition, Florian Börgel was actively involved as a teaching assistant at the master’s level and contributed to summer and winter schools with great creativity. Since starting his post-doctoral research on January 1st 2021, he has already been involved in four scientific publications. His work has been published in high-ranking scientific journals, such as Geophysical Research Letters and Environmental Research Letters. Florian Börgel is currently co-supervising a PhD candidate, and successfully applied for a Google Academic Research Grant. He also contributed to the open-source community by releasing a software package to study the exchange flow of estuaries. Further, he developed a Twitter bot that distributes marine job opportunities and news, with about 1700 followers. Besides his scientific contributions, Florian Börgel was actively involved in several outreach activities, such as science for policy briefings with members of the German parliament. In his voluntary work, he is a board member of the Green Party in the city of Rostock, and a member of the citizen-initiated cycling referendum called Radentscheid Rostock. He has been the deputy speaker of the Green Party’s state working group “Energy and Climate.” Florian Börgel is already on track to advance our understanding of the interconnection between global and regional climate variability, which has important implications across multiple disciplines.