12th Baltic Earth Summer School

From August 17 to 24, 2026, the Baltic Earth Research Network held its twelfth summer school at the Stockholm University Baltic Sea Center’s field station on the Swedish skerry island of Askö. A total of 16 international students from Germany, Sweden, Finland, Lithuania, Estonia, and Denmark traveled to the event to participate in lectures, seminars, and exercises on the climate of the Baltic Sea region, physical oceanography, coastal marine processes, and science communication.

The summer school allowed the students to deepen their knowledge of fundamental climate-related processes in the atmosphere, ocean, sea ice, and on land, as well as methods of climate modeling and the statistical analysis of long-term data series. Since 2015, the summer school has been organized at the Askö Research Station by Markus Meier, an IOW expert on the Baltic Sea climate, and the International Baltic Earth Secretariat (IBES). This year, in addition to Markus Meier, Hans Burchard, Sven Karsten, and Kseniia Safonova from the IOW’s Department of Physical Oceanography lectured the students. The summer school offers students the opportunity to learn within an international and interdisciplinary community and to expand their professional network. The program is primarily aimed at master’s students in Earth system sciences and related disciplines, who learn how to study the climate of the Baltic Sea region and how it is changing. Alongside lectures and exercises, the students worked with Markus Meier to conduct their own measurements of the electrical conductivity, temperature, pressure, and oxygen concentration of seawater using an advanced CTD probe, and then independently analyzed the collected data as part of guided exercises. The students particularly appreciated the opportunity to interact with other international students and the diversity of the courses. The summer school will take place again next year on Askö; further information will be available on the Baltic Earth website at https://baltic.earth/.