Jürgen Junk

Dr. Junk is working as a group leader of the Agro-environmental Systems group of the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology – LIST, and his general research interests are the interactions between atmospheric processes and living organisms like plants, animals and humans. More specific his main research topics are i) agricultural meteorology, ii) climate change projections and climate change impact studies, and iii) air quality. His research focus in agricultural meteorology is the influence of weather patterns on arable crops. In different projects - together with the Administration des services techniques de l'agriculture (ASTA) and the Institut viti-vinicole (IVV) - the relationship between atmospheric variables and plant diseases are investigated. Furthermore, Dr. Junk is responsible for the development of new and application of already existing decision support tools for integrated pest management. Since more than 10-years, Dr. Junk plays an active role in climate change research. Based on numerical model simulations with regional climate models the future climate is simulated. Based on high resolution model simulation performed on LISTs high performance computing system, but also relying on existing data sets e.g. CORDEX, the impact of climate change on Luxembourg and the Greater Region is one of his major research focus. Special focus is given to the impact of future thermal stress and heat waves and their impact on public health, but also risk assessments for invasive species and vector borne diseases are investigated. Another important part of the biometeorological research of Dr. Junk is the domain of air quality. He is responsible for the air quality measuring network/equipment of LIST used for the investigation of relevant gaseous emissions from traffic, industry and agriculture. A special research focus is on the behavior of particulate matter and nano-particles in the near surface atmosphere, their chemical compositions, as well as their impact on human health.