For his BSc applied physics minor, Sem Vijverberg dived into the topic of climate change by following courses from the bachelor Global Sustainability Science at Utrecht University. That sparked his interest and he enrolled for the MSc Climate Physics (UU). He did his thesis work at the KNMI studying the link between evaporation and precipitation within the global climate model EC-earth. Via his former supervisor, he attained a PhD position at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam under a Vidi-project from Dr Dim Coumou.

Extreme weather is often focussed on extreme values (i.e. a certain threshold temperature). The persistence of an anomaly is often understated, while this aspect is crucial for the societal impact of an extreme event. Therefore, this project focusses on mid-latitude persistent summer extremes. The goal is to deduce the causal drivers of persistent events using causal effect networks. Knowing the causal drivers, machine learning will be implemented to investigate the predictability of such events (such as heat waves or high rainfall events).

Expertise

Land-Atmosphere Coupling, Evaporation-Precipitation Interaction, Climate Change, Persistent Summer Extremes, Mid-latitude Atmospheric Circulation.

2017: MSc Climate Physics (Utrecht University)
2015:  HBO Applied Physics (The Haque University)
2012: MBO Car Mechanic (ROC Mondriaan)

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