Hans von Storch is interested in coastal climate and impact (wind, storm surges and waves) in recent times and in possible futures, and methodical issues of statistical climatology (such as detection and attribution of anthropogenic climate change, or utility of proxy data). He is also engaged in joint research with social and cultural scientists since many years.

Hans von Storch has published 25 books, and more than 230 peer-reviewed articles. He is associate editor of Journal of Climate, and a member of the review board of Advances in Climate Change Research (the official journal of the Beijing Climate Center), and of the Advisory Board of Atmosphere. In Poland, he serves on the editorial board of Oceanologia.
He chaired the publication of the 1st and 2nd BACC report and of the 1st and 2nd "Klimabericht für die Metropolregion Hamburg" (see here). After having served as a Lead Author for Working Group I of IPCC TAR, he acted as a Lead Author of Chapter 2 "Foundations of Decision Making" of Working Group II of IPCC AR5.

Hans studied mathematics, physics and Danish at the University of Hamburg, and received a diploma in mathematics in 1976. While a student he also worked as a programmer at the Department of Oceanography. He went on to receive his Ph.D. from the Meteorological Department of the University of Hamburg in 1979, and his "Habilitation" in 1985. From 1987 - 1995, he was Senior Scientist and leader of the "Statistical Analysis and Modelling" group at the Max Planck-Institut for Meteorology (Hasselmann division). During 1996-2015, Hans von Storch was a director of what became later the Institute for Coastal Research at the GKSS Research Centre (now Helmholtz Zentrum Hereon, after many years as Helmholtz Center Geesthacht) and professor at the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg. Later he became also a member of the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences at that university. Within the Institute for Coastal Research, he headed the division "Systems Analysis and Modelling" until September 2015. In October 2008, he was awarded a doctor h.c. by Göteborgs Universitet, and in May 2013 he was elected a foreign member of the Polish Academy of Sciences. His efforts in generating knowledge about climate dynamics and change, and in communication with the public was recognized by the bestowal of the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesverdienstkreuz 1. Klasse) in 2019.

He is married to Prof. Dr. Jin-Song von Storch (徐劲松).

During his academic life, which began in about 1971, Hans von Storch made a number of intellectual achievements. (Werner Krauss wrote a nice subjective piece about his role and his achievements; see also Sven Titz' "Klimawissenschaft zwischen Skylla und Charybdis" in NZZ, 27. January 2010. An overview of work is also given by the citation of the IMSC achievement award "to recognize his key contributions to statistical downscaling, reconstruction of temperature series, analyses of climatic variability, and detection and attribution of climate change". Laudatio by Senator K. Fegebank on the occasion of presenting the "Bundesverdienstkreuz". The Hamburger Abendblatt included him in its series Menschlich gesehen in 2010. (See also Quotes.)
See also the web-of-science based Researcher ID or the Google Scholar citation tool

• The invention of the "downscaling"-terminology and the first examples of using the statistical variant of this approach for the construction of climate change scenarios. (Details)
• Also in the field of downscaling: introduction of the spectral nudging technique for usage in mainly reconstructing regional climate across decades of years but also for scenario construction. (Details) Hans von Storch was among the first, who demonstrated that numerical experiments with regional models need signal-to-noise analysis, just as global model experiments do. (Details)
• Assessing changing storminess, and marine implications (surges, waves) in Europe. Also subsynoptic storms are addressed, among them Polar Lows.(Details)
• Implementation the rather abstract concept of Principal Oscillation Patterns of Klaus Hasselmann for routine analysis and prediction purposes. (Details)
• In the early 2000s, the debate about historical variations of climate was widely suppressed by gatekeeping, with the claim that the "hockeystick" would already describe the past millennium with good accuracy. A simulation study using ECHO-G millennium simulations demonstrated that the methodology behind the "hockeystick" was flawed. The publication of this result lead to the end of the unfortunate blockage which had prevailed so far. (Details)
• Joint work with social scientists allowed Hans von Storch to embed the practice of climate science and its interaction with public, media and politics into concepts such as "post-normal science". This has significant practical implications, such as the insight that even if reduction of emissions may be morally superior but the exclusive focus on it would be misleading when the unavoidable need for early planning of adaptive measures is at the same time neglected. (Details) From these insights followed also the initiative to develop regional climate services (see next items).
• Initiating assessments of scientific knowledge about climate and climate change in specific regions, such as the Baltic Sea catchment (BACC), the metropolitan region of Hamburg, and the North Sea. As a first, an assessment of the scientifically legitimate knowledge about climate, climate change and climate impact in the Baltic Sea Region (BACC) ws concluded in 2008 with the publication of a extensive book, under the leadership of Hans von Storch, organized by the BALTEX secretariat (Hans-Jörg Isemer, Marcus Reckermann). As a second a similar report was published about the metropolitan region of Hamburg in 2010. (Details)
• The issues of post-normal science, assessment reports, building science-stakeholder dialogs and regional reconstructions of climate are elements of a practical concept, named Regional Climate Service. Different from conventional concepts, a key element is the recognition of knowledge competetion in public and political decision processes, and of climate science being a social practice embedded in a cultural milieu. (Details)
• Bilder der Küste: Mapping different views, perceptions and conceptualizations of "coast", together with cultural scientists.(Details)
• Personal accounts of experiencing the changing conditions, ideas and moods of clinate research, provided by interviews with important scientific personalities in the field. (Details)
• Participation at special editorial projects
  - Post-Normal Science: The Case of Climate Research, Nature and Culture, Volume 7, 2 (Jun 2012), https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/nature-and-culture/7/2/nature-and-culture.7.issue-2.xml
  - Special issue of ATMOSPHERE: "Storms, Jets and Other Meteorological Phenomena in Coastal Seas", 2018, and
  - Modelling, Simulating and Forecasting Regional Climate and Weather, Volume I in 2020 and Volume II" in 2023 at FRONTIER, 2023
  - Fishing for human perceptions in coastal and island marine resource use systems at FRONTIER in Marine Research, - volume I in 2016, and volume II in 2024