Welcoming Paula Damke to the group

Paula Damke joined our group on 1 April as a PhD student working on both my VR project and Sebastiaan Swart’s Wallenberg Academy Fellowship project. Paula’s position is funded within our broader effort to understand how the turbulent atmosphere across the Southern Ocean drives air–sea heat and carbon exchange. We are fortunate to have Sarah Nicholson from SOCCO and Channing Prend from the University of Edinburgh join Paula’s PhD supervisory team.

What Paula will be working on

Paula’s PhD focuses on the exchange of carbon and heat between the ocean and atmosphere in the Southern Ocean, with a particular interest in how storms, sea ice and fine‑scale processes affect these exchanges. As she explains, “I will be investigating the exchange of carbon and heat between ocean and atmosphere in the Southern Ocean, with a particular interest in how storms, sea ice and fine‑scale processes affect these exchanges.” At first, she will analyse multi‑year mooring time series to better understand how high‑frequency storm events influence longer‑term CO₂ and heat uptake, with a focus on characteristics and patterns of storm systems and the air mass conditions they transport.

Later in the project, Paula will bring in surface flux estimates from other observational products to extend these analyses in space and time. “Later, I will include surface flux data from other observational products and also look into the role of sea ice and how it affects Southern Ocean air–sea fluxes,” she says. This work will set the stage for combining in situ, satellite and reanalysis data to build a more complete picture of Southern Ocean air–sea exchange.

Paula will also participate in the planned Swedish Antarctic Research Expedition “Pulse of the Weddell Sea” scheduled for late 2027. There, we will deploy a variety of autonomous ocean platforms to measure the air–sea exchange of heat and CO₂. These new surface‑flux data products will be combined with satellite and reanalysis data to study the role of sea ice and how it affects Southern Ocean air–sea fluxes.

Paula’s scientific background

Paula joins us with a Master’s degree in Climate Physics: Meteorology and Physical Oceanography from Kiel University and GEOMAR. For her Master’s thesis, she investigated water‑mass variability and trends at the western boundary of the tropical Atlantic, using observational data from a 10‑year mooring array and several ship‑based hydrographic sections at 11°S. As she describes it, “This 11°S array of four moorings and repeated ship sections allows to observe a bottleneck of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation with the Deep Western Boundary Current and the North Brazil Undercurrent being well captured by the observations and is therefore of high relevance to keep track of changes in global climate processes.”

From the Tropics to the Southern Ocean

Research‑wise, Paula is “generally interested in interactions of different components of the climate system, especially between atmosphere, ocean and sea ice.” Topics in polar oceanography excite her, as well as “investigating processes that appear relevant to global climate.” Her PhD provides a natural next step, moving from tropical boundary‑current dynamics to the high‑latitude Southern Ocean, where air–sea fluxes and sea‑ice processes play an outsized role in the global climate system.

Why this PhD excites her

Paula is particularly drawn to the Southern Ocean because “it is a very interesting region to study as it is so unique and plays such an important part in the global climate system but is yet severely undersampled and poorly understood.” She is excited by the challenge of working in a region where new observations can still shift fundamental paradigms and where better constraints on air–sea exchange are urgently needed to refine climate projections. “Interactions between different climate components such as atmosphere, ocean and sea ice excite me and I hope to contribute to an improved understanding of air–sea fluxes in the Southern Ocean,” she says.

A key attraction of this PhD for Paula is the opportunity to work directly with observational data and autonomous platforms. “I feel that observations by autonomous platforms in general are an essential part of present and future ocean research and staying up to date is great,” she notes. She is looking forward to learning how to pilot and interpret measurements from gliders and other robotic platforms and admits, “I’m looking forward to being able to call myself a robot pilot, I think that’s pretty cool!”

Interests beyond the platforms

Outside of research, Paula has many personal interests and “really enjoy[s] creative activities like drawing, knitting, cooking.” She also loves “spending time outdoors, going on runs or walking my dog.” Beyond these personal interests, she values the collaborative and supportive environment within the Polar Gliders group and the Department of Marine Science at the University of Gothenburg: “I feel that the Polar Gliders group and the marine department at GU create a good environment for me to thrive and to gain a strong foundation for my scientific career, and working and living at the beautiful west coast of Sweden is also very nice and exciting!”

Looking ahead

Over the coming years, Paula’s work with autonomous observations will help reveal when and where air–sea fluxes in the Southern Ocean are most strongly influenced by atmospheric variability, sea‑ice conditions and fine‑scale ocean dynamics. Her measurements and analyses will provide crucial in situ context for ongoing modelling and satellite efforts in the group, strengthening the links between autonomous platforms, process studies and large‑scale climate assessments. We are very happy to welcome Paula to the Polar Gliders team and look forward to following her work as she charts her course as a Southern Ocean robot pilot.