Slangen Sea Level Group @ NIOZ

Some very exciting news: I've been selected to serve as a Lead Author on the next IPCC report!

The IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is an international organisation of the United Nations. The IPCC provides comprehensive assessments of all the science related to climate change. These assessments have been done on a regular basis since 1990, when the first assessment report was brought out. I will be working on the Sixth Assessment report (AR6).

The report (and the workload) is split into three parts:
Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis
Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
Working Group III: Mitigation of Climate Change
Due to my expertise on sea-level change, I have been asked to contribute to Working Group I, on Chapter 9: Ocean, Cryosphere and Sea Level Change.

The IPCC Assessment report is an overview of the state-of-the-art on climate science. This information will be communicated to governments and policy makers. It is therefore a very …

So far, the year 2018 has brought me a lot of new experiences. 

For one, my first PhD student Tim Hermans (@HermansTHJ) has started with his project on high resolution sea-level modelling. It is a project in collaboration with the UK Met Office, who are providing us with some really cool data. Tim has made a flying start and I'm looking forward to working with him over the next few years!

Secondly, I was (for the first time) appointed chair of the organising committee of a conference: the ECR conference on "Impacts of sea-level rise from past to present", also known as iSLR18 (@iSLR18). This conference will be organised in Utrecht (Netherlands) from 26-29 August 2018. And the nice thing is: all participants will be Early Career Researchers (PhD in or after 2010)! We are inviting four great keynote speakers and four ECR scientists to give keynote presentations during the conference, and there will be a field trip and a public outreach event. All in all, we've had very …

Today it has been 5 years since I defended my PhD. I needed a friend to remind me of this, because it feels like it was a lifetime ago. I have since traveled the world, worked in some great places, met awesome people (you know who you are) and learned heaps. And yet it seems like it was only yesterday: I still feel like an 'Early Career Scientist'. But perhaps that's just me. 

On top of this being my 5-year PhD anniversary, I received the amazing news that I have been awarded an NSO-GO grant from the NWO. This grant is for 1 PhD student and will focus on sea-level change research using satellite observations. The student will be part of an international team, featuring co-supervisor Riccardo Riva (TU Delft), promotor Bert Vermeersen (NIOZ/TU Delft), Roderik van de Wal (IMAU), Jonathan Gregory (Univ. Reading) and John Church (UNSW).

A job ad for this position will go out in due course.. I'm looking forward to recruiting a new member for my research group here at NIOZ!

Together with Dr. Renske de Winter and colleagues from Utrecht University, we published a paper on skewed distributions of contributions to sea-level change projections for 2100. This work is linked to a paper we published earlier this year, on the impact of skewed uncertainties on sea level allowances at tide gauge locations. Both papers show that it is very important to find out what the shape is of the uncertainty distribution of ice sheet contributions to sea-level change, as this affect high-risk/low-probability risks at the coast. 

Both papers were selected as highlight papers in their respective journals. The work has received significant attention in the Dutch press, for instance from the NOS and nu.nl.

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Press release [in Dutch]


De totale range van zeespiegelstijging blijkt groter dan gedacht. Binnen 80 jaar kan een regionale stijging van 1,8 meter niet worden uitgesloten, door afname van de massa van de Antarctische ijskap. Dit concluderen onderzoekers van onder a…

Part of my job as a tenure tracker is writing research proposals, so I can hire staff and expand my research group. It is an exciting part of being a researcher: imagining what kind of cool research I could do if only I had the money.. *dreaming away*  But it can also be a bit frustrating, because realistically, in most cases only 15% of the proposals get funded. The solution to that (I hope): try lots of different grant sources. Which is what I've basically been doing ever since I got back from my holiday/work trip this summer.. Write, write, write. Lots of work, but it means I've got a couple of irons in the fire now, so fingers crossed! 

In the mean time, other exciting things have happened. I was interviewed for a Dutch popular-scientific television program, called 'De Kennis van Nu' (Todays' knowledge). I contributed to an episode on weather extremes in a changing climate, and I talked to them about my contribution to research that I recentely co-authored in a …

If you're considering to start a PhD, and you're interested in sea level and climate change... here's your change: we are hiring a PhD student!!

Check out the vacancy at www.workingatnioz.nl for a PhD position on high resolution sea-level modelling and contact me if you'd like more information aimee.slangen[at]nioz.nl.

Closing date 15 september 2017.

And if you wonder who your supervisor would be, check out this video...

Summer is here! Which means, conferencing time is here too! 

The conference of the year for me as a sea-level researcher was the WCRP/IOC conference Regional sea level changes and coastal impacts that took place on 10-14 July in New York. Everybody was going to be there. Everybody! No pressure...

About 400 coastal and sea-level scientists flocked together at the impressive Columbia University Campus for a week of presentations, posters, meetings on sea-level change. All presentations were plenary in the large Roone Arledge auditorium, so all presenters were sure to have a large and diverse audience. 

The week started with past sea-level changes, and worked gradually towards future projections by the end of the week. This meant that most of my hard work would be at the end of the week - or so I thought. With all these people there, it turns out I was super busy all week! Catching up with colleagues and friends that I have collected over the course of my scientific career. Lots of ideas we…