Award Dissertation with Great Relevance for Environmental Research
13. February 2026
Dr Eva-Marie Metz receives the Environmental Award of the Viktor and Sigrid Dulger Foundation
Outstanding research achievement with great relevance for environmental research has earned academic recognition for physicist Dr Eva-Marie Metz; she has received the Environmental Award of the Viktor and Sigrid Dulger Foundation, endowed with 10,000 euros. In selecting her, the Heidelberg Center for the Environment (HCE), Heidelberg University’s environmental research hub, honors her dissertation on the complex dynamics of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The study makes an important contribution to understanding fluctuations in the earth’s carbon balance and can thus form the basis for more precise climate models, according to the HCE’s statement of reasons for awarding the prize to Dr Metz.
In her dissertation, Eva-Marie Metz studies the global carbon cycle and the causes of significant variability in the ratio of CO2 uptake to CO2 release. With her research, she was able to show that, in arid areas in the Southern Hemisphere, the release of carbon dioxide increases at the onset of rainfall after a dry period. Hence dry regions – depending on the current climate – can be both sinks and sources of CO2. Dr Metz combined this finding with observations of the respective ecosystems and with biosphere modelling. She showed that these so-called carbon dioxide pulses are triggered by microbial respiration. In this process soil microbes, which are inactive during dry periods, are reactivated by the moisture and multiply, causing the soil to “breathe” and release CO2. The resulting pulses of increased CO2 release are the primary drivers of annual fluctuations in the carbon balance of arid, continental regions, such as in Australia, and thereby also play a significant role in the earth’s overall greenhouse gas balance.
“Eva-Marie Metz’s dissertation brings a rare mix of scientific depth and a comprehensive overall perspective to the exploration of the carbon cycle,” underlined Dr Sanam Vardag, a scientist at Ruperto Carola’s Institute of Environmental Physics, in her tribute. The study helps us to understand fluctuations in the absorption and release of CO2, thereby contributing to more accurate climate change modelling, she added. Prof. Dr Thomas Rausch called Dr Metz’s work a milestone: “With the knowledge it provides, it has implications that go beyond purely academic interest,” said the HCE Managing Director. The results of her research were published in the prestigious journal “Science”.
Eva-Marie Metz studied physics and geography at the universities of Heidelberg and Marburg. Her doctoral thesis arose in the “Atmosphere and Remote Sensing” group at the Institute of Environmental Physics where Prof. Dr André Butz was her supervisor. In 2025 Heidelberg University’s Faculty of Physics and Astronomy granted her a prize for the best dissertation. At present Dr Metz is working at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena (USA).
The Environmental Award of the Viktor and Sigrid Dulger Foundation honors outstanding master’s theses, doctoral dissertations or habilitation projects in the field of environmental research. Andreas Zühlcke from the Dulger Foundation presented the award at a ceremony on 10 February 2026. Eva-Marie Metz participated online from Pasadena.
