The theme of the Swiss Climate Summer School 2020 is "Extreme weather and climate: from atmospheric processes to impacts on ecosystems and society place". The Summer School takes place on 23 - 28 August in Grindelwald, Switzerland and is open to young researchers (PhD and Postdoc) from all fields of climate research.
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Oeschger Seminar Series
13 March 2020
The University of Bern and the Mobiliar insurance company will continue their partnership researching natural hazards. The contracts for the endowment chair for climate impact research in the Alpine region as well as for the Mobiliar Lab for Natural Risks have been extended until 2024. The support amounts to one million Swiss francs per year. Hail research, among other things, is one highlight of the collaboration. The lab, which is part of the OCCR, has launched a unique hail monitoring network together with MeteoSwiss. The last of 80 fully automatic hail sensors are currently being installed.
10 February 2020
Markus Grimmer and Louis Frey who were the top climate master’s students last year have been awarded the 2019 Oeschger Young Scientist’s Prize. In an interview, they talked about their reasons for doing a master’s degree in climate sciences. “It was only when I started attending lectures in climate and environmental history that I realized that my interests inb physics and history could be combined in a climate master's degree”, Markus Grimmer said. Louis Frey chose the Graduate School of Climate Sciences in Bern "because of the huge selection of courses" and because he could start studying immediately.
Read more: Markus Grimmer Read more: Louis Frey
6 January 2020
The OCCR is the scientific partner of a new planetarium show at Museum of Transport in Lucerne. The 45-minute video projection is called “Mission Earth” and makes weather, climate and science a tangible experience. The possibilities of the large-dome Planetarium provide an unique opportunity for explaining climate phenomena to the visitors of one of the most popular Swiss museums. In 2018,
20 January 2020
Willy Tinner is a specialist when it comes to the history of European fires. In this interview, the paleoecologist and OCCR member talks about the link between the bushfires in Australia and climate change, how the symbolic power of fire helps the climate movement and why Mediterranean countries shouldn’t plant any more pine trees.
7 January 2020
Climate change is more and more discussed in classrooms. The OCCR is partner of the project CCESO (Climate Change Education and Science Outreach) which has developed a dossier on the causes and consequences of climate change for different school levels. The compilation (in German) was just published on the online portal “éducation 21”.
23 September 2019
Physicist and OCCR member Thomas Frölicher played a central role in the IPCC's report on the ocean and cryosphere (ice, permafrost), which will be published on Wednesday, September 25. In an interview, he explains his role as lead author and talks about how he came to explore heat waves in the sea as an inhabitant of a landlocked country.
18 November 2019
The LARA radiocarbon dating laboratory at OCCR is a leading tool when it comes to analysing small material samples. This know-how was also in demand for dating the bronze hand of Prêles, a find that has made international headlines.
24 September 2019
Europe’s first farmers lived in pile dwellings in the Balkans. How did they adapt to new climate conditions and how did they influence their environment? A major EU project, initiated by Bernese researchers, is looking for the answers. We followed the research team for two days.
3 September 2019
An international team of scientists lead by the OCCR reveals that Lake Ohrid in the South Balkans is indeed Europe's oldest lake. A study published in Nature shows that the lake came into being 1.36 million years ago.
27 August 2019
Spaniard Ana Vicedo-Cabrera studied pharmacology, environmental toxicology and epidemiology. Today she leads the research group on Climate Change and Health, which the OCCR and the Institute for Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Bern have jointly established.
25 July 2019
In contrast to pre-industrial climate fluctuations, current, anthropogenic climate change is occurring across the whole world at the same time. In addition, the speed of global warming is higher than it has been in at least 2,000 years. That’s according to two studies from the OOCR.
25 July 2019
Five large volcanic eruptions occurred in the early 19th century. They caused cooling and – as a study led by the OCCR shows – to drying in the monsoon regions and glaciers growing in the Alps. The study shows that the pre-industrial climate was not constant: if one takes this cold period as the starting point for current global warming, the climate has already warmed up more than assumed in the current discussions.
11 June 2019
Huge floating solar islands on the ocean that produce enough energy to enable CO₂-neutral global freight traffic – what sounds like science fiction could indeed prove to be a major contribution to climate protection. An international group of researchers, including OCCR members, has calculated for the first time, the potential contribution to CO₂ mitigation of this concrete proposal.
21 May 2019
Nicole Glaus decided on a climate master’s at the OCCR's Graduate School of Climate Sciences because of its versatility. Today she works as a TV meteorologist.
25 April 2019
The Oeschger Centre has just launched a new brochure which presents its activities in a concise form for anybody interested in climate research. Beside the OCCR’s scientific excellence, the publication stresses the collaboration among 28 research groups: “The Oeschger Centre doesn’t just talk about interdisciplinary cooperation, it lives it“, one of the key messages reads. The new booklet is 20 pages strong and comfortably fits into a jacket pocket. There are an English and a German edition.
9 April 2019
A European research consortium, in which the OCCR is involved in, wants to drill a 1.5 million year old ice core in Antarctica. An analysis of the climate data stored in the ice should contribute to a better understanding of the alternation between warm and cold periods.
14 April 2019
OCCR researcher Sandra Brügger reconstructs past vegetation changes. As an expert on pollen found in glacier ice, she’s even been featured in The New York Times.
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