Quarterdeck 3.3

Part 2
Captain Climate
Achim Stössel brings an ocean of experience to Texas A&M

By Rahilla C.A. Shatto

. . .Continued from part 1

At sea and in school

Fortunately, Stössel's background amply prepared him for a smooth transition to an oceanography career. He was born in Rome, Italy, the child of a German diplomat, and while growing up he also lived in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and Helsinki, Finland. It was the two-day voyage from Amsterdam to Helsinki that had inspired young Achim to study commercial navigation. Throughout his adolescence in Helsinki, he monitored ferry schedules and routes in the Baltic Sea using his own charts.

When he graduated from the European equivalent of high school and started working the Helsinki-Leningrad route, his parents were not enthusiastic. They encouraged him to continue his education, so Stössel half-heartedly attended the University of Kiel in Germany and completed a curriculum in physical oceanography. Throughout college he continued to work as a seaman during breaks. After graduation he decided to commit himself to shipping and began the four years of practical experience at sea and three years of formal education necessary to obtain a captain's certificate. His parents reaction? Stössel recalls that "They finally gave up arguing."

But Stössel quickly realized that two years "before the mast" is not as fun as three-month stints between university sessions. Foreseeing that he could not spend his life at sea, Stössel took up a dual course of study in physical oceanography at the University of Hamburg and nautical engineering at an engineering college. Thus he continued to pursue his dream of being a ship captain and simultaneously planned for a more rewarding and stable future.

From 1980 to 1986 he spent part of each year at sea and part in school and in 1983 he married Marion Guerrero, who also holds a degree in physical oceanography. Stössel left shipping in 1986 after obtaining his captain's license, and followed it four years later with a Ph.D. in oceanography at the Max-Planck Institute (MPI) in Hamburg.

Forsaking the sailor's life for good, Stössel continued at the Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology as a Research Scientist. There he immersed himself in sophisticated computer modeling to examine the formation and movement of sea ice and its role in global climate.

Stössel brings a healthy light-heartedness to science, fostered by years of practical experience with the ocean. He finds computer simulations of environmental change much less worrisome than the harm that can be wreaked from the bridge of a bulk carrier. As he puts it, a fatal error on a ship can cause catastrophic damage to life, property, and the environment. Grinning, Stössel contrasts that to a numerical model, in which "you get a 'Fatal error' message from the computer when the [computer] code explodes for some reason. You just find the bug and resubmit it."

Continued . . .

URL=http://oceanography.tamu.edu/Quarterdeck/QD3.3/Shatto/shatto-b.html