Stefan Rahmstorf

45.7k total citations · 20 hit papers
160 papers, 24.8k citations indexed

About

Stefan Rahmstorf is a scholar working on Global and Planetary Change, Atmospheric Science and Oceanography. According to data from OpenAlex, Stefan Rahmstorf has authored 160 papers receiving a total of 24.8k indexed citations (citations by other indexed papers that have themselves been cited), including 93 papers in Global and Planetary Change, 89 papers in Atmospheric Science and 65 papers in Oceanography. Recurrent topics in Stefan Rahmstorf's work include Climate variability and models (79 papers), Geology and Paleoclimatology Research (48 papers) and Oceanographic and Atmospheric Processes (43 papers). Stefan Rahmstorf is often cited by papers focused on Climate variability and models (79 papers), Geology and Paleoclimatology Research (48 papers) and Oceanographic and Atmospheric Processes (43 papers). Stefan Rahmstorf collaborates with scholars based in Germany, United States and United Kingdom. Stefan Rahmstorf's co-authors include Dim Coumou, Andrey Ganopolski, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Martin Vermeer, Timothy M. Lenton, Hermann Held, Vladimir Petoukhov, Wolfgang Lucht, Jim W. Hall and Elmar Kriegler and has published in prestigious journals such as Nature, Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In The Last Decade

Stefan Rahmstorf

152 papers receiving 23.4k citations

Hit Papers

Tipping elements in the Earth's climate system 1995 2026 2005 2015 2008 2012 2006 2002 2019 500 1000 1.5k 2.0k
What are hit papers?

Hit papers significantly outperform the citation benchmark for their cohort. A paper qualifies if it has ≥500 total citations, achieves ≥1.5× the top-1% citation threshold for papers in the same subfield and year (this is the minimum needed to enter the top 1%, not the average within it), or reaches the top citation threshold in at least one of its specific research topics.

  1. Tipping elements in the Earth's climate system
    2008 2.3k citations Timothy M. Lenton, Hermann Held et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences profile →
  2. A decade of weather extremes
    2012 1.7k citations Dim Coumou, Stefan Rahmstorf profile →
  3. A Semi-Empirical Approach to Projecting Future Sea-Level Rise
    2006 1.2k citations Stefan Rahmstorf profile →
  4. Increasing River Discharge to the Arctic Ocean
    2002 1.2k citations R. M. Holmes, J. W. McClelland et al. profile →
  5. Climate tipping points — too risky to bet against
    2019 1.0k citations Timothy M. Lenton, Stefan Rahmstorf et al. Nature profile →
  6. Increase of extreme events in a warming world
    2011 921 citations Stefan Rahmstorf, Dim Coumou Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences profile →
  7. Global sea level linked to global temperature
    2009 862 citations Martin Vermeer, Stefan Rahmstorf Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences profile →
  8. Ocean circulation and climate during the past 120,000 years
    2002 853 citations Stefan Rahmstorf Nature profile →
  9. Rapid changes of glacial climate simulated in a coupled climate model
    2001 759 citations Andrey Ganopolski, Stefan Rahmstorf Nature profile →
  10. Exceptional twentieth-century slowdown in Atlantic Ocean overturning circulation
    2015 708 citations Stefan Rahmstorf, Georg Feulner et al. profile →
  11. Observed fingerprint of a weakening Atlantic Ocean overturning circulation
    2018 655 citations Stefan Rahmstorf, Alexander Robinson et al. Nature profile →
  12. Bifurcations of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation in response to changes in the hydrological cycle
    1995 551 citations Stefan Rahmstorf Nature profile →
  13. Sea-level rise due to polar ice-sheet mass loss during past warm periods
    2015 538 citations Benjamin P. Horton, Stefan Rahmstorf et al. profile →
  14. Climate related sea-level variations over the past two millennia
    2011 345 citations Andrew C. Kemp, Benjamin P. Horton et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences profile →
  15. Temperature-driven global sea-level variability in the Common Era
    2016 298 citations Andrew C. Kemp, Benjamin P. Horton et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences profile →
  16. Extreme weather events in early summer 2018 connected by a recurrent hemispheric wave-7 pattern
    2019 272 citations Kai Kornhuber, Scott Osprey et al. Environmental Research Letters profile →
  17. Current Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation weakest in last millennium
    2021 263 citations Niamh Cahill, Stefan Rahmstorf et al. profile →
  18. Increasing heat and rainfall extremes now far outside the historical climate
    2021 164 citations Alexander Robinson, Jascha Lehmann et al. npj Climate and Atmospheric Science profile →
  19. Assessing ExxonMobil’s global warming projections
    2023 114 citations Stefan Rahmstorf et al. profile →
  20. The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth
    2024 98 citations Michael Mann, Timothy M. Lenton et al. profile →

Peers — A (Enhanced Table)

Peers by citation overlap · career bar shows stage (early→late) cites · hero ref

Name h Career Trend Papers Cites
Stefan Rahmstorf Germany 67 13.7k 12.7k 6.2k 3.2k 2.5k 160 24.8k
Thomas F. Stocker Switzerland 74 20.3k 1.5× 12.1k 0.9× 5.7k 0.9× 6.6k 2.0× 2.9k 1.2× 281 32.0k
Susan L. Solomon United States 12 14.6k 1.1× 18.6k 1.5× 4.2k 0.7× 6.5k 2.0× 1.3k 0.5× 33 36.8k
Martin Manning New Zealand 28 10.3k 0.7× 14.3k 1.1× 2.8k 0.5× 4.3k 1.3× 826 0.3× 50 26.3k
Dahe Qin China 52 15.1k 1.1× 16.0k 1.3× 2.6k 0.4× 4.9k 1.5× 1.1k 0.4× 299 31.7k
Melinda Tignor Netherlands 9 8.7k 0.6× 12.5k 1.0× 2.5k 0.4× 4.1k 1.2× 812 0.3× 12 24.7k
Michael Mann United States 91 20.5k 1.5× 17.3k 1.4× 5.4k 0.9× 3.3k 1.0× 1.6k 0.6× 416 36.1k
Kristen Averyt United States 16 8.1k 0.6× 10.6k 0.8× 2.5k 0.4× 3.7k 1.2× 743 0.3× 26 21.4k
Melinda Marquis United States 18 8.3k 0.6× 10.8k 0.9× 2.4k 0.4× 3.7k 1.1× 735 0.3× 32 21.5k
Ronald J. Stouffer United States 71 27.0k 2.0× 35.0k 2.7× 10.7k 1.7× 3.9k 1.2× 1.1k 0.4× 132 47.5k
Andrew J. Weaver Canada 62 9.2k 0.7× 8.4k 0.7× 4.8k 0.8× 1.8k 0.5× 839 0.3× 303 17.1k

Countries citing papers authored by Stefan Rahmstorf

Since Specialization
Citations

This map shows the geographic impact of Stefan Rahmstorf's research. It shows the number of citations coming from papers published by authors working in each country. You can also color the map by specialization and compare the number of citations received by Stefan Rahmstorf with the expected number of citations based on a country's size and research output (numbers larger than one mean the country cites Stefan Rahmstorf more than expected).

Fields of papers citing papers by Stefan Rahmstorf

Since Specialization
Physical SciencesHealth SciencesLife SciencesSocial Sciences

This network shows the impact of papers produced by Stefan Rahmstorf. Nodes represent research fields, and links connect fields that are likely to share authors. Colored nodes show fields that tend to cite the papers produced by Stefan Rahmstorf. The network helps show where Stefan Rahmstorf may publish in the future.

Co-authorship network of co-authors of Stefan Rahmstorf

This figure shows the co-authorship network connecting the top 25 collaborators of Stefan Rahmstorf. A scholar is included among the top collaborators of Stefan Rahmstorf based on the total number of citations received by their joint publications. Widths of edges represent the number of papers authors have co-authored together. Node borders signify the number of papers an author published with Stefan Rahmstorf. Stefan Rahmstorf is excluded from the visualization to improve readability, since they are connected to all nodes in the network.

All Works

20 of 20 papers shown
1.
England, Matthew H., et al.. (2025). Drivers of the extreme North Atlantic marine heatwave during 2023. Nature. 642(8068). 636–643. 11 indexed citations
2.
Li, Xueke, Michael Mann, Michael Wehner, et al.. (2024). Role of atmospheric resonance and land–atmosphere feedbacks as a precursor to the June 2021 Pacific Northwest Heat Dome event. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 121(4). e2315330121–e2315330121. 18 indexed citations
3.
4.
Robinson, Alexander, Jascha Lehmann, David Barriopedro, Stefan Rahmstorf, & Dim Coumou. (2021). Increasing heat and rainfall extremes now far outside the historical climate. npj Climate and Atmospheric Science. 4(1). 164 indexed citations breakdown →
5.
Robinson, Alexander, Jascha Lehmann, David Barriopedro, Stefan Rahmstorf, & Dim Coumou. (2021). Author Correction: Increasing heat and rainfall extremes now far outside the historical climate. npj Climate and Atmospheric Science. 4(1). 2 indexed citations
6.
Horton, Benjamin P., Nicole S. Khan, Niamh Cahill, et al.. (2020). Author Correction: Estimating global mean sea-level rise and its uncertainties by 2100 and 2300 from an expert survey. npj Climate and Atmospheric Science. 3(1). 4 indexed citations
7.
Kornhuber, Kai, Scott Osprey, Dim Coumou, et al.. (2019). Extreme weather events in early summer 2018 connected by a recurrent hemispheric wave-7 pattern. Environmental Research Letters. 14(5). 54002–54002. 272 indexed citations breakdown →
8.
Mann, Michael, S. K. Miller, Stefan Rahmstorf, Byron A. Steinman, & Martin P. Tingley. (2017). Record temperature streak bears anthropogenic fingerprint. Geophysical Research Letters. 44(15). 7936–7944. 21 indexed citations
9.
Rahmstorf, Stefan, Erik Jan Schaffernicht, Georg Feulner, & Michael Mann. (2013). Evidence for a sudden slowdown in Atlantic overturning around 1970. EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts. 2 indexed citations
10.
Feulner, Georg, et al.. (2013). Why is the Northern Hemisphere warmer than the Southern Hemisphere. EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts. 1 indexed citations
11.
Kienert, Hendrik & Stefan Rahmstorf. (2012). On the relation between Meridional Overturning Circulation and sea-level gradients in the Atlantic. Earth System Dynamics. 3(2). 109–120. 11 indexed citations
12.
Vermeer, Martin, Stefan Rahmstorf, Andrew C. Kemp, & Benjamin P. Horton. (2012). On the differences between two semi-empirical sea-level models for the last two millennia. 1 indexed citations
13.
Lenton, Timothy M., Hermann Held, Elmar Kriegler, et al.. (2008). Tipping elements in the Earth's climate system. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 105(6). 1786–1793. 2271 indexed citations breakdown →
14.
Christl, Marcus, Stefan Rahmstorf, A. Ganopolski, et al.. (2004). Solar Forcing of Abrupt Glacial Climate Change in a Coupled Climate System Model. AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts. 2004. 3 indexed citations
15.
Rahmstorf, Stefan. (2003). Thermohaline circulation: The current climate. Nature. 421(6924). 699–699. 106 indexed citations
16.
Rahmstorf, Stefan. (2002). Ocean circulation and climate during the past 120,000 years. Nature. 419(6903). 207–214. 853 indexed citations breakdown →
17.
Peterson, B. J., R. M. Holmes, J. W. McClelland, et al.. (2002). Increasing Arctic River Discharge: Responses and Feedbacks to Global Climate Change. AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts. 2002. 6 indexed citations
18.
Ganopolski, Andrey & Stefan Rahmstorf. (2001). Rapid changes of glacial climate simulated in a coupled climate model. Nature. 409(6817). 153–158. 759 indexed citations breakdown →
19.
Rahmstorf, Stefan. (1993). A fast and complete convection scheme for ocean models. Early Intervention in Psychiatry. 10(3). 203–11. 67 indexed citations
20.
Rahmstorf, Stefan. (1992). Modelling ocean temperatures and mixed‐layer depths in the Tasman sea off the South Island, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research. 26(1). 37–51. 17 indexed citations

Rankless uses publication and citation data sourced from OpenAlex, an open and comprehensive bibliographic database. While OpenAlex provides broad and valuable coverage of the global research landscape, it—like all bibliographic datasets—has inherent limitations. These include incomplete records, variations in author disambiguation, differences in journal indexing, and delays in data updates. As a result, some metrics and network relationships displayed in Rankless may not fully capture the entirety of a scholar's output or impact.

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