Dr Marcel Nicolaus

I am a research scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany. My main research interest is the role of sea ice and its snow cover as key elements of the climate- and ecosystems.

The energy and mass budget of snow and sea ice as they change over seasons and vary along different spatial scales are key elements of my research questions. As an expert in sea ice physics, I have a main expertise on observational studies on the interaction of atmosphere, snow, sea ice, and the upper ocean.

My most recent research is based on operations of Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) under sea ice and the use of ice tethered autonomous platforms (buoys). With these, measuring a large suite of physical, biological, and geochemical parameters are of particular interest and I feel most challenged to upscale and generalize in-situ observations to larger scales and into seasonal time series.

In Diatom-ARCTIC, I am the co-lead investigator, and responsible for the ROV based observations of the bio-physical sea ice and habitat conditions. I work on linking our field observations into general parameterizations and numerical models.

In EcoLight, I am responsible for parts of the autonomous measurements from our buoys. I work on time series data of bio-physical properties of snow, sea ice, and the upper ocean.

Eco-Light and Diatom-ARCTIC are co-funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and by NERC.