23.04.2014|Frankfurt/M: 27 year old Mandy Freund is receiving the Bernd-Rendel-Prize for young geo-scientists. The German Science Foundation (DFG) awards this prize for her scientific potential as well as the quality and originality of her work on the spatial reconstruction of European climate utilizing stable isotope ratios of carbon and oxygen from tree rings.

Mandy Freund`s approach is based on annually resolved drought-sensitive stable isotope time series from a network of 26 sites distributed between Scandinavia and the Mediterranean sea. She was able reconstruct the spatial distribution and frequency of summer droughts and floods for the last 400 years and could relate them to specific large scale weather patterns. Hot and dry conditions in the Balkans do, for example, verly likely correspond to wetter and cooler conditions than normal on the British Isles and in Scandinavia. Mandy Freund`s work evolved from a cooperation between the Institute for Meteorology of the Freie Universität Berlin and section 5.2 Climate Dynamics and Landscape Evolution at the GFZ. It is embedded in Geo.X, the platform for strategic partnership of geoscientific institutions of the Berlin/Potsdam region.

On the same occasion, the Serge-von-Bubnoff-Medal of the German Society for Geosciences (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geowissenschaften DGG) was awarded to Dr. Manfred Menning likewise from GFZ Section “Climate Dynamics and Landscape Evolution” for his excellent lifetime achievments.