The Nexus Group introduces itself: Dr. David Gampe

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Dr. David Gampe studied at the Department of Geography and completed his doctorate in 2018. After his postdoc in Augsburg, he returned to LMU in 2021 and has been working at the Chair of Nexus Research since 2023. He is currently investigating how snow droughts affect the productivity of ecosystems.

Which aspect of your work excites you the most?

I don't think you can say that in general terms; it depends very much on the moment. For example, when I'm on a field trip with students, I'm most enthusiastic about teaching. I think it's an incredible feeling when you can share your knowledge with someone and teach them. When you see that someone has a realization that you have contributed to. I think that's often the case on field trips, where you have a much more intensive exchange with the students. But when I'm on the verge of a breakthrough in my research, then of course it's the research that excites me the most. I think it's really cool that I get paid to find out things that interest me. I see it as a luxury that I can pursue questions that I'm passionate about.

What is your favourite research method?

Currently, I’m excited to delve deeper into global ecosystem modeling. Additionally, I find everything that has to do with climate attribution and ‘counter factual climate simulations’ very exciting. You look at what the world would be like without anthropogenic climate change and compare that with what it has actually become. And I'm also fan of large ensemble simulations. These are climate simulations that vary only minimally in the initial conditions but are otherwise pretty much identical. You can then analyse how the individual model runs develop differently. The climate is a chaotic system, and minimal changes can have a major impact via the butterfly effect. This allows you to analyse the huge range of climate variability.

If you could freely create a research project of your choice, what would you want to work on?

I've actually wanted to do some research on polar bears for a long time, for example using the data of their tracking sensors. The polar bear is the symbol of climate change par excellence, and I think that's what sparked my huge interest in polar research. My biggest dream would be to go on a polar expedition on a research ship, I think that would be super exciting.

Highlighted Publications

• Gampe D, Zscheischler J, Reichstein M, O’Sullivan M, Smith W K, Sitch S, & Buermann W (2021) Increasing impact of warm droughts on northern ecosystem productivity over recent decades. In: Nature Climate Change, 11(9), 772-779.

• Gampe D, Schwingshackl C, Böhnisch A, Mittermeier M, Sandstad M, & Wood R R (2024) Applying global warming levels of emergence to highlight the increasing population exposure to temperature and precipitation extremes. In: Earth System Dynamics, 15(3), 589-605.