5 questions for Johannes Bieser

What is the Hereon share of GMOS-Train?

Johannes Bieser: GMOS-Train investigated the distribution of mercury in air, water, and on land. The Marie Sklodovska Curie Innovative Training Network is one of the most prestigious funding programs alongside the ERC Grants of the European Commission. In addition to scientific excellence, it is also about training young researchers. In GMOS-Train, we have trained 15 doctoral students with 11 European partner institutes. This involved an international exchange of young people between the institutions. We directly supervised three doctoral students at Hereon and also co-supervised six international early career scientists (ESRs) at the Hereon Institute of Coastal Systems - Analysis and Modeling. In the project, I was responsible for the work package “Multi-compertment modeling”. This related to the scientific linkages between the atmosphere, the ocean, and the marine ecosystem. My colleague Martin Ramacher from the Institute of Coastal Environmental Chemistry and I organized a monthlong Hackathon PhD School in Hamburg. We programmed and modeled in a specially rented office space. The key idea behind the event was to teach ESRs who typically work in the lab basic modeling concepts and create additional value out of their data. It's so inspiring when young people who normally work together in a lab start writing software codes with us. We discussed and learned from each other - we created a great spirit.

What was the focus of the research?

Scientist Dr Johannes Bieser. Photo: private source

The development of a new digital model that depicts the complex mercury cycle in the ocean. On the one hand, this meant understanding the chemical processes between elemental, oxidized and methylated mercury. On the other hand, the bioaccumulation in the marine food chain. The term bioaccumulation refers to the accumulation of pollutants. For example, the mercury content in phytoplankton can be 100,000 to 1,000,000 times higher than in water. And with every step in the food chain, it accumulates more and more. While mercury in air and water is far from being dangerous for humans, its accumulation in fish is a real danger. None of this had ever been modeled before and we didn't know whether we were coming up against insurmountable limits. In fact, the development went flawlessly. It simply required proper research and testing. We researched all the processes from the literature and incorporated new findings from GMOS-Train - and were thus able to trace the mercury cycle. The biggest challenge, however, was the organization with the doctoral students, because the supervision and co-supervision together with the regular groups and individual meetings took up a lot of resources. But it really was an inspiration. As someone in his forties, I learned what makes the next generation tick. Something I was not aware of on day one. We also had people from all disciplines there. The physicist who knows more math than I do. The biologist who could explain an ecosystem to me. So much knowledge came together. Friendships were formed. I still write regularly with many of the participants and continue to work with some of them.

What were the general challenges?

Quite a few! The project started in January 2020, and I also played a key role in the project proposal. We started our project, which focused on participant mobility, directly in the global coronavirus lockdown. The plan was to bring candidates from abroad from the respective institutes to us. It was a big problem to get all the people to the respective country and the exchange between institutes had to be suspended. In fact some people started their position during lockdown and only saw their new institute and colleagues after several weeks or even months. Once we actually met in Hamburg, I only had to remind the doctoral students once that they should forget about their other projects at home and focus on our thing. The motivation was incredibly high.

How could the challenges be overcome?

As we had to endure the coronavirus pandemic. I started holding weekly online meetings one complete afternoon a week with the doctoral students who were working in the area of modeling. We actually managed to have more contact than without the lockdown. For me personally, video calls and mobile working were an overdue innovation in our working world. Due to the lockdown, the project was extended by the EU for a year at no extra cost, so we were able to catch up on face-to-face exchanges. The collaboration with the groups working in the lab went surprisingly smoothly. It was a central goal that those measuring and those modeling worked together - and not side by side. Solving challenges also meant putting all your time and energy into this project. It was so gratifying that everyone had a goal and that we grew together and were ultimately successful.

The EU Commission has listed you and your GMOS-Train team as one of the “success stories” from the projects funded under the framework program. What are the goals for the future?

Modeling mercury in water and the atmosphere is a complicated task. Photo: Jim Witkowski via Unsplash

The project has just come to an end, but the work continues: now it's “harvest time”. This means that we have so much new material that we are now busy incorporating the findings into the models and publishing our discoveries. In short: first write the papers before sending out new applications. We are currently working on so many papers, I couldn’t exactly say how many. The nice thing about working at a Helmholtz research center: You can stay on top of your topics. And that will be mercury for me. We have a lot of new data and processes that we can incorporate into the model and evaluate. For example, we are using the model in a project that is calculating a model ensemble for the global mercury cycle for the evaluation of the UN Minamta Convention on Mercury. This United Nations document is an international treaty on the reduction of mercury. The convention stipulates that progress is to be evaluated every six years. I am part of the expert group which is currently preparing the first effectiveness evaluation. It is always very meaningful and gratifying when our own work produces tangible results. We will not be bored for the time being.

Vita

Dr Johannes Bieser has been working at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon since 2006 when he still was a student. He is a modeler that started with emissions- and atmospheric pollution modeling. Nowadays, he is developing multi-compartment models for persistent pollutants of global concern. In addition to mercury he is currently working on PFAS (Per- and poly Fluorinated Alkyl Substances). Dr. Bieser wrote his doctoral thesis at the then Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht where he developed an emission model to evaluate the influence of emissions on air quality. The title of the dissertation was “Development of a European emission model for chemical transport modeling” (SMOKE for Europe). He graduated with a degree in environmental sciences from the University of Lüneburg in 2007.

Cutting-edge research for a changing world

Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon`s scientific research aims at preserving a world worth living in. To this end, around 1000 employees generate knowledge and research new technologies for greater resilience and sustainability - for the benefit of the climate, the coast and people. The path from idea to innovation leads through a continuous interplay between experimental studies, modeling and AI to digital twins that map the diverse parameters of climate and coast or human biology in the computer. This is an interdisciplinary approach that spans from the fundamental scientific understanding of complex systems to scenarios and practical applications. As an active member of national and international research networks and the Helmholtz Association, Hereon supports politics, business and society in shaping a sustainable future by transferring the expertise it has gained.