Professor Tatiana Ilyina

I recently started as Director at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology founding a new Department Ocean Biosphere Dynamics. Learn more about my research plans here.

Previously I was Professor at the Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Natural Sciences of the Universität Hamburg. At UHH I founded a new Research Area Modeling the Carbon Cycle in the Earth System in the Department of Earth System Sciences. As part of the joint professorship, I was also Head of Department Earth system modeling at Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon. My working group transitioned from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, where I had been Lead of the Ocean Biogeochemistry Group.

Ongoing climate change is essentially a CO2 problem. It can only be solved by strong decarbonization measures drastically cutting CO2 emissions. Thereby there are fundamental uncertainties in our understanding of how the carbon cycle and feedbacks change. I directly address this one of the most pressing problems of our time through my research. My research interests lie primarily in the area of the ocean carbon cycle, its variability and predictability on decadal time-scales, as well as its impacts on Earth’s climate via the climate-carbon-cycle feedbacks on centennial to millennial time-scales. In 2025 I received the European Geosciences Union’s Fridtjof Nansen medal “for distinguished research in oceanography to enhance our understanding of the ocean carbon cycle and its critical role in the climate system”.

My research philosophy has been to address these topics with Earth system models (ESMs). Within my group, we develop the model HAMOCC (HAMburg Ocean Carbon Cycle model) as an interactive component of the ICON-based ESM and MPI-ESM. HAMOCC is the main tool to test our ideas. We focus on ESM simulations enabled by interactive carbon cycle. In this way, variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration are computed prognostically and are directly modulated by the ocean and land carbon sinks. By resolving carbon-climate feedbacks, such approach enhances the realism of ESM simulations and better informs on their uncertainties. It furthermore addresses basic science questions on how climate and carbon sinks respond to changing emissions during decarbonization and provides a direct link between policy changes and the Earth system.

Together with research students and post-docs in my group, as well as with external collaborators, I address knowledge gaps in our understanding of the following research questions:

• How does the ocean carbon sink respond to rapid climate change events?

• What are predictability horizons for the ocean and land carbon sinks and atmospheric CO2 growth?

• What is the role of internal climate variability on the ocean carbon sink and biogeochemical cycles?

• How meso- and submeso-scale processes in the ocean impact the ocean biogeochemical cycles?

• How did changes in ocean circulation shape the biogeochemical cycles during ancient warmings and the last glacial cycle?

• What are the impacts of artificial ocean alkalinity enhancement in the Earth system?

I contribute to advancing the international climate science as co-Chair of the Working Group on Coupled Modeling of the World Climate Research Programme.

Recruitment opportunities in my group

I am actively recruiting PhD and MSc students, as well as postdoctoral researchers under the broad themes listed above. Specific projects are usually advertised separately at the MPI-MM's webpage. Do not hesitate to get in touch to discuss potential projects!