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Zahn, Rainer
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ICREA Research Professor at UAB (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona). Experimental Sciences & Mathematics
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Rainer Zahn holds MSc and PhD degrees in Marine Geology from the University of Kiel in Germany. Following post-doctoral affiliations at Oregon State University, USA, and the University of British Columbia, Canada, he moved to an Assistant Professorship at the GEOMAR Research Center in Kiel, Germany, where he obtained his Habilitation and Venia Legendi in 1999. Subsequently he was Full Professor in Marine Geosciences at Cardiff University, UK. In 2002 he settled in Barcelona. His home University is the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona where he is a member of the Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals and the Departament de Física.
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Research Interests
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The focus of my research is the connection of ocean and climate. My research centres on the ocean currents around southern Africa, namely the water transport from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic. This transport influences the Atlantic circulation and, notably, the Gulf Stream. My research aims to understand the ocean circulation in the southern hemisphere and its influence on climate in Europe. I collaborate with oceanographers, climate modellers and paleoclimatologists in Israel, UK, Germany, US and South Africa. With palaeo-anthropologists I explore the linking between the marine climatology of the Indian Ocean and influence on continental climate in southern Africa in the past, and how this affected the evolution of modern humans in South Africa about 400,000 years ago.
I am Coordinator of the European Research and Training Network “GATEWAYS” (www.gateways-itn.eu) and Editor in Chief of the journal Paleoceanography published by the American Geophysical Union in Washington.
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Key Words
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palaeoclimate, ocean circulation, global environmental and climate change
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