Theresa Borkopp was awarded the 2024 Women4Geo scholarship of the Research Unit Climate and Environmental Remote Sensing and worked on the forecasting of droughts and heat waves as part of the Clim4Cast project. Here you can read about her experience:

My name is Theresa Borkopp, and I am currently pursuing my Master’s degree in Global Change and Sustainability at the University of Vienna. In the summer of 2024, I had the valuable opportunity to work as a Women4Geo Summer Student with the Climate and Environmental Remote Sensing Group at the Department of Geodesy and Geoinformation at TU Wien. My work involved supporting the Clim4Cast project, which focuses on developing a tool to monitor and forecast heatwaves, droughts, and fire weather (DHF), key challenges in the context of climate change. Given the increasing frequency of extreme weather events due to climate change, it is crucial to enhance society’s resilience to DHF events. The Clim4Cast project aims to develop a multi-temporal tool that covers central Europe, offering early warning systems and supporting regional response mechanisms. This tool will help monitor and forecast DHF, thereby improving preparedness and strengthening the cooperation between central European countries.

The summer job allowed me to deepen my understanding of weather observation and forecasting tools, as well as the collection and analysis of meteorological data relevant to DHF. My primary tasks included writing a scientific report on DHF monitoring and forecasting and programming tasks to reformat geodata for the project. This enabled me to gain initial experience in Python programming, specifically in the efficient processing of geodata for use in environmental studies. While drafting the scientific report, I developed a stronger grasp of the strengths and limitations of different input data, methods, and indices used in forecasting, and learned about the most effective ways to implement DHF tools.

Working with the Clim4Cast project was an exciting and enriching experience that solidified my desire to specialize in environmental remote sensing within the field of natural hazard and risk management. Additionally, my work at CLIMERS highlighted the vital role of geodata processing through programming, which has motivated me to pursue further experience in this area.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the CLIMERS group for offering me such an insightful opportunity and for fostering a supportive, collaborative environment. The warm working atmosphere and the open exchange with the team made it easy for me to settle in. I am especially grateful to Prof. Wouter Dorigo, Emanuel Büechi, and Nirajan Luintel for making this experience possible. I would be thrilled to continue working with the group in the future.