Bärbel Hönisch (born 1974) is a German paleoceanographer and

paleoclimatologist Paleoclimatology ( British spelling, palaeoclimatology) is the scientific study of climates predating the invention of meteorological instruments, when no direct measurement data were available. As instrumental records only span a tiny part of ...

, author, and professor at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

Education

Hönisch earned a

vordiplom A ''Diplom'' (, from ) is an academic degree in the German-speaking countries Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and a similarly named degree in some other European countries including Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia ...

in biology at

Bielefeld University Bielefeld University () is a public university in Bielefeld, Germany. Founded in 1969, it is one of the country's newer universities, and considers itself a "reform" university, following a different style of organization and teaching than the e ...

in 1995, a diplom (

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

) in marine biology in 1999 at the

University of Bremen The University of Bremen () is a public university in Bremen, Germany, with approximately 18,400 students from 117 countries. Its 12 faculties offer more than 100 degree programs. The University of Bremen has been among the top 50 European rese ...

, and a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

in natural sciences in 2002 at the

Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research The Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (German: ''Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung'') is located in Bremerhaven, Germany, and a member of the Helmholtz Association ...

Career and research

From 2002 to 2006 she worked in various scientific roles, including at the

Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) is a research, research institution specializing in the Earth science and climate change. Though part of Columbia University, it is located on a separate closed campus in Palisades, New York. The obs ...

, and since 2007 she has been a professor at Columbia University. She has been a tenured professor at the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences there since 2019. Based on an analysis of the Middle

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

, in the course of which the duration of the various

glacial period A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate betw ...

s increased from 40,000 to 100,000 years, Hoenisch and her co-authors reconstructed the temperature fluctuations and the carbon dioxide concentration over the past 2.1 million years in a study published in 2009 indicating that the current CO₂ values are the highest within this comparison period. She was the lead author of a 2012 study on

ocean acidification Ocean acidification is the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth's ocean. Between 1950 and 2020, the average pH of the ocean surface fell from approximately 8.15 to 8.05. Carbon dioxide emissions from human activities are the primary cause of ...

Science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

, collaborating with James Zachos,

Ellen Thomas Ellen Thomas (born January 24, 1947) is an American peace activist. She first became involved with the White House Peace Vigil on April 13, 1984. The daughter of a US Marine, Thomas was born in Brooklyn and grew up in California. She became oppo ...

, and others. Summarizing the results, she said, "What we’re doing today really stands out. We know that life during past ocean acidification events was not wiped out—new species evolved to replace those that died off. But if industrial carbon emissions continue at the current pace, we may lose organisms we care about—coral reefs, oysters, salmon." Hönisch received the 2018 Willi Dansgaard Award from the

American Geophysical Union The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, Atmospheric science, atmospheric, Oceanography, ocean, Hydrology, hydrologic, Astronomy, space, and Planetary science, planetary scientists and enthusiasts that ...

in recognition of her "research impact, innovative interdisciplinary work, educational accomplishments (mentoring), societal impact, or other relevant contributions and to acknowledge that the awardee shows exceptional promise for continued leadership in paleoceanography or paleoclimatology." The award cited her pioneering work in the development and application of geochemical proxies for reconstruction of paleo ocean temperatures, carbonate chemistry, and atmospheric CO₂. In 2018 she gave the Marie-Tharp Lecture at GEOMAR.

Web of Science The Web of Science (WoS; previously known as Web of Knowledge) is a paid-access platform that provides (typically via the internet) access to multiple databases that provide reference and citation data from academic journals, conference proceedi ...

records 60 publications and an

h-Index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with success indicators such as winning t ...

of 27 (as of January 2020).Query of the

database on 17 January 2020.

Selected publications

* *

References

Bibliography

''Bärbel Hönisch, Professor Earth and Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry''

'' Women in Oceanography: A Decade Later, Autobiographical Sketches, Bärbel Hönisch, Associate Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA''
in: Oceanography, the official magazine of The Oceanographic Society, S. 139, PDF, S. 93 {{DEFAULTSORT:Honisch, Barbel Columbia University faculty German climatologists 21st-century German women scientists 21st-century German scientists Bielefeld University alumni University of Bremen alumni 1974 births Living people Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory people