Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (OCCR)

Great collaborative work

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the OCCR has provided scientific evidence and legal advice to the European Court of Human Rights. The team has published its experience in preparing evidence for a case in which a group of older women are suing the Swiss government in the journal Nature.
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News and events

Seminar Series

The Seminar Series, organised by OCCR research groups, is public and open to all interested parties.

Paper of the month

Expert judgment in climate science

OCCR members Mason Majszak and Julie Jebeile have published an article on the role of expert judgement in the journal Studies in history and philosophy of science. In this paper, they note that in climate science, expert judgment is used to overcome uncertainty and thus play a crucial role in the field, sometimes even supplanting models. This goes against the objective ideal in science and the criteria from social epistemology which largely attempt to remove subjectivity from expertise.

Swiss Climate
Summer School 2024

The 22nd International Swiss Climate Summer School will take place from 1 to 6 September 2024 in Grindelwald, Switzerland. It focuses on the topic "Climate Change: From the Dawn of the Anthropocene to Options for the Future". The aim of this interdisciplinary summer school is to bring together young researchers with established scientists from different disciplines. Registration is now open.

Klimaschutz und Subventionen: Braucht es Reformen?

25. September 2023

Am 20. Oktober 2023 findet an der Universität Bern eine Tagung statt, die dem Thema Subventionen in der klimarechtlichen Diskussion gewidmet ist. Die Veranstaltung ist öffentlich und richtet sich an ein breit interessiertes Publikum aus Wissenschaft, Praxis und Politik.

Global Climate of the Past Six Centuries

25 September 2023

On 10 November 2023 a mini symposium takes place regarding a new climate reconstruction, termed “Modern Era Reanalysis”. ModE-RA, is the outcome of the ERC Advanced Grant PALAEO-RA awarded to OCCR member Stefan Brönnimann

New professor for climate physics

22 August 2023

OCCR member Thomas Frölicher has been appointed by the Executive Board of the University of Bern as a full professor of climate and environmental physics as of 1 August 2024. He succeeds Thomas Stocker, who will retire in summer 2024. Thomas Frölicher is a specialist in ocean and climate modelling and has been an SNSF assistant professor at the University of Bern since 2017.

Mathias Zesiger hält Mobilar Lecture

25. September 2023

Am 22. November 2023 findet die traditionelle Mobilar Lecture statt. Mathias Zesiger von swisstopo spricht über «Rapid Mapping - Geodaten für die Bewältigung und Dokumentation von Naturereignissen». Er leitet beim Bundesamt für Landestopografie den Teilprozess Kriseninformation.

Could artificially dimming the sun prevent ice melt?

13 August 2023

With methods of so-called geoengineering, the climate could theoretically be artificially influenced and cooled. Researchers of the OCCR have now investigated whether it would be possible to prevent the melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet by artificially "dimming the sun". The results, which have just benn published in Nature Climate Change, show that artificial influence does not work without decarbonization and entails high risks.

New book on palaeoecology

15 August 2023

OCCR member Willy Tinner is one of the editors of a new book entitled
“Quaternary Vegetation Dynamics of Europe”. Based on palaeoecological studies by many authors, this book gives an overview of the changing history of the European plant cover during the past 2.6 million years, characterized by numerous cold and warm periods. For the first time, a detailed synthesis is presented of the many findings on European vegetation dynamics, which are complex and increasingly difficult to summarize.

Global warming caused 60 percent of Swiss heat deaths in the summer of 2022

4 July 2023

Climate change is intensifying heat, leading to a significant increase in heat-related health problems. About 60 percent of the more than 600 heat-related deaths in the summer of 2022 in Switzerland can be attributed to human-induced global warming. This is shown by a study just published in “Environmental Research Letters” journal led by OCCR member Ana Vicedo.

Tree rings show: it has never been this warm in the last 1200 years

2 August 2023

OCCR member Georg von Arx is co-author of a paper just published in the journal Nature that could have far-reaching implications for understanding the climate of the past. The study, based on a new 1200-year time series using tree rings, shows that the medieval climate anomaly was cooler than previously thought. The authors used a new method to reconstruct temperatures from tree rings. They directly measured the cell wall thickness of the wood cells in the annual tree rings.

Switzerland is looking for the largest hailstone

5 June 2023

To mark its 10th anniversary, the Mobiliar Lab for Natural Risks at the University of Bern is holding a competition on hail, looking for photos of large hailstones. The Mobiliar Lab works at the interface between science and practice and investigates how hail, floods and storms occur, and how damage can be reduced. It develops tools for better handling of natural risks.

"We should shine a much brighter spotlight on international research networks"

31 May 2023

Martin Grosjean, the director of the Oeschger Center, is also the co-chair of PAGES (Past Global Changes) since 2023. He shares his views in an interview about the role of international research networks and the importance of PAGES for the University of Bern’s reputation.

She makes dripstones talk

25 Mai 2023

Paleoclimatologist Franziska Lechleitner climbs into caves and examines stalagmites to unravel climatic changes of the past. Those, for example, that may have played a role in the collapse of the Mayan civilisation 1100 years ago.

Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation was more stable than thought

3 April 2023

A study by OCCR researchers published in the Nature Geoscience journal concludes that at the end of the last ice age there was not, as previously assumed, a complete collapse of the ocean circulation in the Atlantic, which provides a mild climate in Europe. This realization has implications for the discussion on climate tipping points.