Seminar Series

Oeschger Seminar Series

Learning from extreme events

23 September 2021

For once, the traditional autumn event of the Mobiliar Lab for Natural Risks did not take place in a lecture hall, but at the scene of an extreme event, in the centre of Zofingen, a small Swiss town which was severely damaged by a torrential thunderstorm rain in 2017.

New Vice-President

11 October 2021

Karin Ingold was elected by the OCCR Scientific Committee as the new Vice-President of the Oeschger Centre. She is a professor of political science and heads the OCCR group "Policy Analysis with a Focus on the Environment". Her main research interests are: Policy Analysis, Policy Process Theory, Instrument Design, Environmental Policy and the Application of Social Network Analysis.

The first farmers of Europe

31 August 2021

A research team from the OCCR has managed to precisely date pile dwellings on the banks of Lake Ohrid in the south-western Balkans for the first time: they came into being in the middle of the 5th millennium BC. The region around the oldest lake in Europe played a key role in the proliferation of agriculture.

Climate and Society in Europe

2 September 2021

OCCR members and professors emeriti Christian Pfister and Heinz Wanner are the authors of “Climate and Society in Europe – The Last Thousand Years”. For the first time, a historian and a climatologist with knowledge of climate history have worked closely together to create a unique book, combining climate reconstructions based on documented data in their human-historical context with temporally highly resolved analyses of climate and glaciers. The book is published by Haupt, Berne.

Scientific Image Competition

29 April 2021

OCCR member Lukas Munz is one of the winners of the SNSF Scientific Image Competition 2021. Using a telescope he photographed his research partner during measurements. This snapshot in the high mountains was awarded the first prize in the category "The Women and Men of Science". For the jury, the austere frame of the picture underlines the "importance of mutual trust" under extreme conditions."

The ocean modeler

30 August 2021

OCCR researcher Charlotte Laufkötter studies the effects of climate change and plastic pollution on the world's oceans. Step by step, the ambitious marine scientist is climbing the academic career ladder.

From classical music to the economic consequences of forest fires

3 February 2021

Ranking second in her class at the Graduate School of Climate Sciences, Sarah Meier has been awarded a 2020 Oeschger Young Scientist’s Prize for her achievements. For her master’s degree she majored in economics.

A top educated climate activist

3 February 2021

Conall Heusaff finished at the top of his class at the Graduate School of Climate Sciences, winning a 2020 Oeschger Young Scientist’s Prize for his achievements. Now he provides expert analysis of electricity market issues in Ireland.

Understanding future climate risks

27 January 2021

With global warming, extreme events like heatwaves and droughts of unimaginable proportions are becoming a possibility. Olivia Romppainen, co-organizer of an international conference on the subject, explains why we need a better understanding of these combined weather and climate events – so-called compound events.

Climate change and the seasons

13 January 2021

The BernClim observation network is celebrating its 50th anniversary. To mark the occasion, there's a new brochure out in German: "Klimawandel und Jahreszeiten". It was produced by a team of researchers here at OCCR, and it highlights the importance of phenological observations while showing how climate change affects the seasons.

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