Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (OCCR)

March 2023

General News

Past Events

Upcoming Events

People 

Publications  

 

General News

Two new research groups at the OCCR

The OCCR is getting two new research groups:

The Soil Science group is led by Adrien Mestrot. The group studies the biogeochemistry of soils under global change to improve environmental health and food production. The team uses advanced analytical approaches to understand soil pollution and soil organic matter dynamics in response to land management and climate change. It investigates matter fluxes between soils and atmosphere, biota, ground and surface water from nano to field scale.

The Marine Biogeochemistry and Pollutants group is led by Charlotte Laufkötter. The group models the biologically mediated carbon uptake of the ocean and will use models of different complexities to better understand the biologically driven carbon cycling in the ocean and to quantify the uncertainties in future projections. 

New OCCR PostDoc positions

One of the ways the OCCR sets its scientific priorities is by funding PostDoc positions. At its last meeting, the Scientific Committee has decided the following new PostDoc positions for the period 2023 - 2025:

  • Social Tipping Points (affiliated to the Philosophy of science perspectives on the climate challenge, and the Comparative Politics groups).
  • Climate Federalism (affiliated to the Policy Analysis and Environmental Governance, and Climate Change and the Law: Challenges in Practice and Legal Theory groups).
  • Regional Climate Modelling (affiliated to the Earth System Modelling - Atmospheric Dynamics, and Climatology, the Mobiliar Group for Climate Impact Research, and the Climatology group).
  • Climate and Human Health (affiliated to the Climate change and health group).
  • Urban Climate (affiliated to the Climatology group).
  • Compound Events (affiliated to the Mathematical and Applied Statistics group) (prolongation).

OCCR researchers advise Human Rights Court

As previously reported, OCCR researchers have contributed their expertise in the Climate Seniors court case. A group of elderly women criticises Switzerland for not doing enough to combat climate change. They are taking their complaint to the European Court of Human Rights. The document to the court prepared by 12 professors and experts of UniBE is now available online.

OCCR members in the media

OCCR members in the media

Erica Gobet (Paleoecology group), Hubertus Fischer (Past Climate and Biogeochemical Studies on Ice Cores group and Lukas Fesenfeld (Policy Analysis and Environmental Governance group) are just a few of the OCCR researchers who have made media appearances in recent weeks.

An overview of OCCR members in the media can be found in the Press Coverage section of the OCCR website.

Past Events

Digital Archaeology

On 1 – 3 February 2023 the International Colloquium on Digital Archaeology took place in Bern. The title of the conference which was co-organized by the OCCR was “Advancing open research into the next decade”.

Remote Sensing of the Cryosphere

On 6 - 8 February 2023 the 10th EARSeL workshop on Land Ice and Snow took place in Bern. The title of the conference which was co-organized by the OCCR was “Remote Sensing of the Cryosphere: methods and applications from regional to global scale”.

Upcoming Events

Welcome meeting on 3 May

The next welcome meeting for new OCCR members will take place on 3 May 17h. More detailed information will follow.

Apéro Series for young OCCR researchers on 5 May

The next edition of the Apéro Series for young OCCR researchers is organised be the Climate and Society group. It will take place on 5 May 2023, 16h30. Save the date! More detailed information will follow.

10th anniversary of the Mobiliar Lab for Natural Risks

On 9 May 2023, the traditional spring event of the Mobiliar Lab for Natural Risks will take place in Burgdorf from around 4:30 pm. The 10th anniversary of the Lab will serve as an opportunity to discuss flood risk on site using tools developed in the Lab. At the same time, the event will look into the future of the Mobiliar Lab. More information will follow.

Conference on hydroclimate change

From 16 - 17 May 2023 the conference “Tropical Atlantic basin hydroclimate change: learning from long instrumental records” will take place in Bern. It is co-organized by the OCCR.

Workshop Volcanic Impacts on Climate and Society

The PAGES Volcanic Impacts on Climate and Society (VICS) 5th Workshop will take place form 22 - 24 May 2023 in Bern. Its title is “Moving forward by looking back” and it is co-organized by the OCCR.

PAGES symposium 2023

On 1 June 2023, PAGES (Past Global Changes) will be hosting an in-person symposium in Bern with the option of online attendance. The purpose of the meeting is to highlight the broad and diverse achievements of PAGES working groups. This will also provide an opportunity for networking, as there will be complementary coffee breaks, a buffet lunch, and apéro. Attendance is free, but registration is mandatory by 31 March.

Young Researchers Meeting

On 8 – 9 June the traditional OCCR Young Researchers Meeting will take place at the Hotel Meielisalp in Leissigen on the shores of Lake Thun. The theme of the meeting is: Climate Policymaking: the impact of science, media, politics, and civil society. Further information will follow.

Franxini Boot Camp on Swiss political system

From 7 – 8 June 2023 the Franxini Boot Camp - Marathon takes place at the University of Bern. This an intensive course for senior researchers over 2 days in which the participants will get to know the basics of the Swiss political system and find out where and how they can get constructively involved. This event is co-organized by the OCCR.

Trial lectures for the successors of Markus Leuenberger and Fortunat Joos

The trial lectures for the successors of Markus Leuenberger (Environmental Isotopes and Gases group), and Fortunat Joos (Earth System Modelling – Biogeochemical Cycles group) will take place on June 6/7 and August 30/31, 2023, respectively. Save the dates!

Summer School Climate in History

From 17 – 20 August 2023 the Summer School “Climate in History” will take place in Aeschi bei Spiez. It invites young researchers from all fields of historical/archaeological research who have no or modest prior knowledge on climate sciences or working with climate data. The Summer School is jointly organized by the OCCR and the European Society for Environmental History (ESEH) Conference which takes place from 22-26 August 2023 in Bern.

Next plenary meetings

The next OCCR Plenary Meetings will take place on 11 September 2023 and 12 February 2024, 14.00 – 17.00. Save the dates! Programme and registration will be made available in due time.

Conference on climate of the past and societal responses

From 5 - 8 June 2024 the conference “Climate of the past and societal responses to environmental changes” will take place in Bern. It is co-organized by the OCCR.

People

Martin Grosjean new PAGES co-chair

Martin Grosjean, the Director of the Oeschger Centre, has been elected co-chair of PAGES (Past Global Changes). The PAGES project is an international effort to coordinate and promote past global change research. It provides support for the gathering and synthesis of observations, reconstructions, and the modeling of climate, ecosystem, environmental and societal dynamics in the past. Former co-chairs include OCCR members Hubertus Fischer, Thomas Stocker, Willy Tinner, and Heinz Wanner.

Ana Vicedo awarded with a NCCS project

Ana Vicedo (Climate change and health group) has been awarded with a project funded by the National Center for Climate Services NCCS) on the impact of climate change on human and animal health. This project is for approx. 3 years, and it will be developed by a consortium of researchers of the University of Bern, including the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine and the Veterinary Public Health Institute (VPHI). The objective of the project is to provide up-to-date, robust, actionable scientific evidence on climate change impacts on human and animal health based on existing knowledge gaps and evidence needs that would feed into decision-making processes at national, regional, and local scales in Switzerland.

Annelie Holzkämpfer coordinates EJP-Soil project

Annelie Holzkämpfer (Climate and Agriculture group) is the coordinator of the project SoilX. The project, which just started, is a new European Joint Programme (EJP) Soil project investigating to what extent soil management improvements can mitigate climate change-related precipitation extremes. The interdisciplinary project team involves partners from 6 European countries, who will conduct a harmonized sampling campaign, region-specific modelling studies and conduct surveys amongst regional farmers.

Gunter Stober awarded with a GAW project

Gunter Stober (Atmospheric Processes and Radiometry group) has been awarded a Global Atmospheric Watch (GAW) project. It is called "The Swiss H2O Hub: High-quality water vapour measurements from ground to space" and is funded with about CHF 1 million. The University of Bern is leading the consortium, which also includes EMPA, ETH Zurich and MeteoSwiss. The project will establish harmonized time series to investigate trends and interannual differences in upper tropospheric and stratospheric H2O, including a study of a possible signature of the Hunga-Tonga eruption in the middle atmosphere.

Hubertus Fischer featured in a UniBE media releas

“New technology revolutionizes the analysis of old ice" reads the title of a media release on a new method developed by Hubertus Fischer (Past Climate and Biogeochemical Studies on Ice Cores group) and Empa. Thanks to this new technology greenhouse gas concentrations in 1.5-million-year-old ice can be measured even more accurately. The EU project “Beyond EPICA” with the participation of the OCCR aims to recover such old ice in Antarctica.

Hendrik Vogel featured in "uniaktuell"

An article in the online magazine "uniaktuell" of UniBE is dedicated to the project of Hendrik Vogel (Sedimentary Geochemistry group) on Lake Nam Co in Tibet. One of the aims of the SNFS Sinergia project is to better predict the possible effects of climate change on the water supply of one third of the world's population. Read the article (in German) entitled “Solving climate puzzles on the roof of the world”.

Malve Heinz wins poster award

Malve Heinz wins poster award

Malve Heinz (Climate and Agriculture group) won a Poster Award from the SSHL (Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Hydrologie und Limnologie) at the Swiss Gesoscience Meeting 2022 (Award for the best design). The poster was entitled “Agricultural adaptations to increasing drought extremes and their feedbacks on catchment hydrology”.

Chuxian Li and her “crazy” project

Chuxian Li and her “crazy” project

Chinese environmental scientist Chuxian Li has come to the OCCR (Lake Sediments and Paleolimnology group) with a newly created SNSF Swiss Postdoctoral Fellowship as an alternative to the EU’s Marie Curie Fellowship. She was attracted by the “right environment" for a “crazy” research project as she says herself. She wants to clarify the role of the Southern Ocean in the carbon cycle. To this end she is interested in the OCCR’s infrastructure for measuring mercury isotopes, which play a central role in her project.

And on the other hand, the great expertise in paleoclimatology and in the analysis of natural climate archives. Read the full story.

The unlikely journey of Adrianus Damaniak to Bern

The unlikely journey of Adrianus Damaniak to Bern

Adrianus Damanik is a geology PhD student at the OCCR - and because of his Indonesian origins, he is an important bridge builder in a project on climate reconstruction from lake sediments in his home country. Read the full story.

Boris Vannière is a new visiting scientist

Boris Vannière is a new visiting scientist

Boris Vannière is a new visiting scientist at the OCCR. He is hosted by Willy Tinner (Paleoecology group), Institute of Plant Sciences (IPS). Boris has been a "part-time visiting professor" at the IPS for one year and works closely with Paleoecology group on various projects. Several joint publications have already been produced. Boris is actually employed at the CNRS in Besançon, France but has decided to do most of his research at the OCCR.

Elisa Fornalé is a new Associate Researcher

Elisa Fornalé is a new Associate Researcher

Elisa Fornalé has been appointed Associate Researcher of the OCCR. She is an SNSF Professor at the World Trade Institute (WTI) of the University of Bern. Her research interests lie in the areas of international law, climate change, human mobility and human rights. Elisa leads, among others, the project "Framing Environmental Degradation, Human Mobility and Human Development as a Matter of Common Concern". The project aims to identify the nexus between climate and mobility through a pilot case study in the Pacific small island states.

Researchers who have recently joined the OCCR:

Ivan Ackermann

Ivan Ackermann is a new PhD with the Climate Economics: Energy, Technological Change and International Cooperation group. He did a Master in Economics with a focus on public and environmental economics and a thesis entitled “An analysis of the electric car diffusion in Switzerland: How does the density of the charging infrastructure affect electric car purchases?”

Giovanni Baccolo

Giovanni Baccolo is a new PostDoc with the Analytical Chemistry Research group. He graduated in Environmental Science at the University of Milano-Bicocca in 2013, then did a PhD in Polar Science at the University of Siena. From 2018 to 2022 he held a PostDoc position at the University of Milano-Bicocca.

Walid El-Ajou

Walid El-Ajou is a new PhD with the Comparative Politics group. He gained his Master of Arts in Political Science at the University of Bern.

Renaldo Gastineau

Renaldo Gastineau is a new PostDoc wiht the Quaternary Geology and Palaeoclimatology group. He completed his PhD at ISTerre Grenoble (France), where he focused on the seismic cycle of the Middle Branch of the North Anatolian Fault in Turkey using the sediments of Lake Iznik as an archive. He will spend a year at the University of Bern, where he will work on the chronology and causes of massive slope destabilisations in Lake Brienz (Switzerland).

Sheharyar Khan

Sheharyar Khan is a new PhD with the Biotic interactions group. He did his Master in Botany – Microbial and Molecular Genetics at the University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. His current research is on the impact of climate change on multitrophic interactions.

Itzel Lopez Montoya

Itzel Lopez Montoya is a new PhD with the Terrestrial Ecology group. She did an International Master of Science in Soils and Global Change jointly from Ghent University (Belgium), Göttingen University (Germany) and the University of Natural Resources and Applied life Sciences (BOKU) (Austria) with a thesis entitled “Response of methanotrophs to drying and rewetting events in Austrian forests” in BOKU and the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT). 

Nicolas Tournier

Nicolas Tournier is a new PhD with the Sedimentary Geochemistry group. He did a Master in Marine Geology at the University of Perpignan, France. His thesis was entitled Dynamics of Pyrenean Glaciers and High Altitude Lakes.

Evelien Van Dijk

Evelien Van Dijk is a new PostDoc with the Past Volcanism and Climate Impact group and the Past Climate and Biogeochemical Studies on Ice Cores groups. She did a MSc in Hydrology and Physical Geography and a PhD in Paleoclimate both at the University of Oslo, Norway. Her research focus is on the impact of volcanic eruptions on the surface climate of the Northern Hemisphere and on human societies in Norway during the Late Antique Little Ice Age. To do so, she uses Earth System Models, climate proxy and archeological data.

Richard Warren

Richard Warren is a new PhD with the Climate and Society group. He did a MSc in Climate Sciences at the OCCR’s Graduate School with a thesis investigating volcanism-climate-society interactions in 19th century India. He also holds a Master in Physics of the University of Southampton.

Aaron Wienkers

Aaron Wienkers is a new PostDoc with the Marine Biogeochemistry and Pollutants group. He recently finished his PhD at the University of Cambridge,
where he has focused on sub-mesoscale atmosphere-ocean interactions. Aaron has studied in Stanford and Berkeley to become an atmosphere–ocean mathematical physicist with experience in developing high-performance software to simulate phenomena in geophysical fluid dynamics.

A warm welcome to all of you!

Recent journal publications by OCCR members

See all the publications by OCCR members.