Grants

This project focuses on the impacts of sorting in the labor market. Sorting refers to the relationship between worker and firm heterogeneity in jobs. We study what drives the increasing sorting which have been documented previously and we test how sorting affects the productivity of firms. Increased sorting may affect both economic efficiency (by making firms more productive) and wage inequality (when firms share their productivity gains). A change in sorting, for instance due to technological progress that affects the allocation of workers to firms and leads to efficiency gains, may require policies to offset wage inequality. Designing such policies requires a quantification of what drives sorting and how sorting affects the economy. These two questions are therefore the core research questions of this research project.

The Centre for Ice and Climate is one of the leading institutes for climate research based on information stored in ice cores from ice sheets and glaciers. The past atmospheric composition is also recorded in ice cores as bubbles of old air. During the last glacial with lower temperatures methane as well as temperature in the northern hemisphere show rapid increases so called Dansgaard-Oeschger events. The underlying reason for both is circulation changes in the Atlantic Ocean i.e. the formation of deep water. During Dansgaard-Oeschger events, the emission of CH4 increases by roughly 100%. In this project, we want to understand what sources increase during Dansgaard-Oeschger events and where they are located. That information is important for projecting emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane in a warming world scenario with potential rapid climate change.

In a representative democracy, the prospect of voter reward and punishment puts an important constraint on the everyday decisions of politicians. But what do politicians actually believe about voter behavior? And how well do their beliefs match against reality? This project will break new ground in the study of politics by investigating whether politicians overestimate the reactions of v¬oters who are personally affected by policy and whether politicians underestimate their own ability to change people’s minds. Theoretically, the project develops a new framework for understanding how politicians think about voter reactions. Methodologically, the project employs a novel research design that compares the actual reaction of voters to how politicians think voters will react. Empirically, the project will be one the first to provide systematic evidence to a longstanding question in modern democracies: Do politicians fear voter reactions and, if so, are such fears exaggerated?

The hydroxyl radical (OH) is the most important oxidant in the troposphere and impacts the abundance of greenhouse gases and pollutants. The objective of this research project is to explore non-photolytic routes to atmospheric OH. Ozonolysis of alkenes yields stabilised Criegee intermediates (CIs), which will be identified by IR action spectroscopy; IR excitation of CIs produces OH that is detected by UV laser-induced fluorescence. Changes in the IR-UV time delay quantify OH production rates. Rates are isomer and conformer specific and comparison with calculated rates enables identification of the exact reaction pathway. Stabilised CIs also react with atmospheric species, and these reactions will be explored. During alkane combustion, hydroperoxy radicals (QOOH) form. Direct observations of QOOH are scarce; however, IR action spectroscopy allows the characterisation of QOOH intermediates and their ability to release OH.

This project unravels shorter-term mass loss associated with recent anthropogenic climate change from persistent longer-term mass balance trends associated with Little Ice Age deglaciation at Jakobshavn Glacier, Greenland. This research bridges geological and satellite time-scales to critically evaluate decadal-scale snow-to-ice compaction and centurial-scale ice dynamic hypotheses of inland ice-sheet thinning at Jakobshavn Glacier. Fieldwork measures ice-sheet elevation, velocity and near-surface density along a transect for direct comparison with recently digitized historical data. Decadal-scale modelling of transect near-surface energy and mass balance is used to attribute observed thinning to surface and ice dynamic processes. Centurial-scale modelling of ice dynamics within Jakobshavn catchment is used to attribute ice thinning due to post-LIA response and anthropogenic climate change. Attribution of transect mass loss is contextualized by leading satellite-derived estimates.