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Panoramic view on the North Campus © Jürgen Huhn​/​TU Dortmund
Dr. Christoph Köhn joins Department of Physics

Simulating and Understanding Processes in Thunderclouds

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Auf dem Foto sieht man ein Kornfeld und dunkle Gewitterwolken. In der Mitte schlägt ein Blitz ein. © firewings​/​stock.adobe.com
Dr. Christoph Köhn is engaged in the theoretical investigation and modeling of clouds and lightning.
After ten years in Copenhagen, physicist Dr. Christoph Köhn has now returned to Germany. He joined the Department of Physics at TU Dortmund University in January and is funded by the Heisenberg Program of the German Research Foundation (DFG). By awarding this funding, the German Research Foundation is acknowledging the “high academic quality and originality of his research at international level” as well as his potential to qualify further as a university teacher. The DFG will now support him for five years, in this way enabling him to continue his theoretical investigation and modeling of clouds and lightning – and to further enhance his reputation.

Dr. Christoph Köhn’s group is mainly working on the theoretical investigation and modeling of atmospheric plasmas. “Essentially, we are dealing with everyday phenomena that everyone is familiar with – clouds and lightning,” says Köhn. “These have been known for thousands of years, yet we still do not have a precise understanding of the processes that occur within clouds.” With the help of newly developed methods, his team is able to simulate the processes taking place in thunderclouds. The focus is on the electrically charged particles that develop to form lightning and “terrestrial gamma-ray flashes” (TGFs), which consist of X-rays and gamma rays. These are the most energetic processes on Earth.

Another of his research priorities is plasma chemistry. Köhn explains: “We want to understand, for example, to what extent thunderstorms contribute to the production of greenhouse gases and what role they might have played in forming prebiotic molecules on primordial Earth.” In the long term, this work could potentially explain the impact of thunderclouds on technology and the natural environment. Dr. Christoph Köhn has come to TU Dortmund University from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) in Copenhagen, where he spent ten years working in research. “Dortmund was particularly interesting to me because the Department of Physics has a very broad research portfolio and offers promising collaboration opportunities in particle physics and biophysics.”

Foto: Dr. Köhn im Porträt © Martina Hengesbach
Dr. Christoph Köhn has been conducting research at the Department of Physics since December 2025.

At DTU, he was initially funded by a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship of the EU. In 2018, he was appointed as “Researcher”, which equates to “Assistant Professor” in Germany. A year later, he was promoted to “Senior Researcher”, which is equivalent to “Associate Professor” at international level. In March 2026, he will defend his postdoctoral lecture qualification (Habilitation) at DTU. Prior to that, he completed his doctoral degree in Amsterdam and a short research stay in Brussels, having studied physics in Kiel and Hamburg. In 2021, Dr. Christoph Köhn secured a Danish Starting Grant of around €800,000 to set up a research group that simulates lightning and associated phenomena. He has also led a Horizon Europe Doctoral Network as Principal Investigator since 2025, with funds of around €4.6 million to study energetic radiation from thunderclouds.

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