Over 50 people gather in Germany for the first EERIE project in-person event

Over 50 people gather in Bremerhaven for the first EERIE project in-person event

16 November 2023

More than 50 EERIE project members, partners and guests gathered in the German town of Bremerhaven in early November for the project first ever in-person event. It was also live-streamed for those who couldn’t make it to Germany.

The gathering kicked-off at the AWI facilities on Monday 6 November 2023 with a three-day General Assembly during which the state of the project was presented and discussed extensively during both the plenary sessions and breakout groups.

The attendees also had the chance to watch keynote presentations such as ‘How climate change is transforming climate modeling’ by Max Planck Institute for Meteorology’s director Bjorn Stevens, among others.

But there were more than fully EERIE-related topics — for example, day two ended with a Polar Evening event thanks to the talks of award-winning and AWI’s in-house photographer Esther Horvath and scientist Stephanie Arndt on their Arctic and Antarctic experiences. After supper, GA participants had an opportunity to try polar gear on, which led to some hilarious moments.

The third day of the event featured conclusions and WP breakout groups reports were presented to the plenary.

Most of the GA participants also stayed for the first EERIE invitation-only hackathon, hosted in the same venue 9-10 November and some other colleagues joined for this two-day hands-on experience with super high-resolution climate data.

“I think we have sharpened our original plans and adjusted them to some ongoing changes and new insights”, outlined AWI’s Thomas Jung, one of the project coordinators.

The event meant a big boost to the project as it presented a fantastic opportunity to get to meet colleagues in person and strengthen ties within EERIE and beyond.

You can watch a video summary of the event here and have a look at some photos here.