The OCCR was involved in a new study that has found two types of climatic connection between the North Atlantic and Antarctica. One is a rapid atmospheric channel and the other a much slower connection through the ocean. During the last glacial period, these links resulted in abrupt climatic changes – and could so again in future.
Oeschger Seminar Series
5 November 2018
The next International Swiss Climate Summer School will take place from 8 – 13 September 2019 at Monte Verità, Ascona, Switzerland. It focuses on the theme “Carbon and climate in the Paris world: getting out of the fossil fuel carbon budget crunch”. With conventional mitigation and adaptation options not sufficiently exploited, humankind may need to deploy unconventional methods to meet its internationally recognized warming targets of 2°C or even 1.5°C.
13 November 2018
The OCCR played a key role in developing the Climate Scenarios CH2018. Based on these model calculations, climate researchers in Bern are developing new tools to better identify flood risks. To this end, they are now launching the “Research Initiative Flood Risk”.
18 June 2018
The research station at Jungfraujoch where the OCCR group „Environmental Isotopes and Gases“ plays a prominent role is at the top of Europe – and not only because of its unique location. Within the framework of the European research infrastructure „Integrated Carbon Observation System" (ICOS), the laboratory in the heart of the Alps is now officially certified. ICOS provides data to better understand the global carbon cycle and how human activities affect it. The backbone of ICOS is a network of stations that have to meet the highest quality standards.
12 September 2018
The OCCR has launched a new publication called “1868 - a flood that changed Switzerland”. This 60 pages strong brochure, written for an non-scientific audience, is the fruit of the collaboration of researchers from all fields of the OCCR. The project has produced an in-depth analysis and reconstruction of the flood that affected large parts of the Alpine region in Switzerland in autumn 1868. The brochure can be downloaded free of charge.
23 October 2018
An interdisciplinary team from the universities of Bern (Oeschger Centre), Oxford and Thessaloniki was awarded a grant of 6.4 million euros from the European Research Council (ERC). The team included researchers from the fields of archeology and biology. They received one of the highly competitive “ERC Synergy Grants”. Aided by studies conducted in the lakes in Greece and in the south of the Balkans, the project should show how the climate, environment and agriculture have developed over the last 10,000 years and what influences these factors have had on each other.
20 August 2018
32 students from 11 nations participated at the first International Bachelor Summer School for Climate Change Research co-organized by the OCCR. The two-week event was entitled “Confronting Climate Change - from Science to Policy” and brought together students from different disciplines, including natural sciences, economics, and law. Participants were full of praise for high level lectures, the interdisciplinary focus, and the joys of summer in Bern.
15 August 2018
Marine heatwaves can irreversibly damage ecosystems and, therefore, also present a threat to fishing. As a team led by OCCR memberThomas Frölicher showed in a study just published in the journal Nature, the number of marine heatwaves has increased dramatically in past decades. This trend will further intensify as a result of climate change.
2 August 2018
A dense network to measure temperature in Bern provides a detailed three dimensional picture of this summer’s heatwave. OCCR researcher show that the differences between single points of measurement within the city of Bern as well as in its surroundings may differ up to 4 °C. This is an important piece of information to plan measures against heat stress.
Read more (in German)
25 June 2018
Selected intervals in the past that were as warm or warmer than today can help us understand what the Earth may be like under future global warming. A latest assessment of past warm periods, published in Nature Geoscience by an international team of 59 scientists from 17 nations, shows that in response to the warming ecosystems and climate zones will spatially shift and on millennial time scales ice sheets will substantially shrink.
28 May 2018
Every seventh building in Switzerland is at risk of flooding, and four out of five Swiss communities have been affected by floods within the past 40 years. At the OCCR, the Mobiliar Lab for Natural Risks aims to better inform authorities and the public about the risks associated with flooding. For this reason, it’s creating an interactive online database of images illustrating floods: the “Collective Flood Memory”.
4 June 2018
Chantal Camenisch wants to go all the way up the university career ladder – thanks in part to her research stints abroad. The environmental historian currently lives as a guest researcher in Rouen, France, and will soon head to York in the north of England. Of course the academic nomad is bringing her young family along.
18 April 2018
OCCR researcher Stefan Brönnimann has received a grant of 3 million Swiss francs from the European Research Council for the next five years. The goal of the funded project PALAEO-RA is to produce a comprehensive reconstruction of global climate of the past six centuries, a palaeo-reanalysis. The reconstruction will provide globally complete, three dimensional monthly fields of many variables and thus allows dynamical interpretations of past climate events. The project combines numerical modelling and mathematical techniques with historical documentary data and measurements, and dynamical analyses.
Read more (in German)
4 January 2018
The average sea temperature is an essential parameter of the global climate – but it is very difficult to measure. At least until now, because an international team of researchers including OCCR scientists have now developed a novel method using the concentration of noble gases in the eternal ice. This allows conclusions to be drawn on the changes in sea temperature from the last ice age to the present day.
Hochschulstrasse 4
3rd floor WEST
3012 Bern
Phone:
+41 31 631 31 45