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Carlota Corbella started as a new PhD in the Climatology group. She did a Master’s in Atmospheric Sciences at ETH-Zürich with a thesis entitled "Competing Effects of Global Warming, Aerosols, and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation on Surface Solar Radiation in the Continental United States as Represented in CMIP6 Historical Simulations". Her research focuses on the relationship between internal climate variability and extreme weather events through the assimilation of historical data into climate models. The working title of PhD thesis is: "Decadal weather variability in Europe and its links with the tropics".

Conall Ruth started as a PhD student in the Climatology group on 1st May 2024. His research will focus on reconstructing European weather and climate back to the 17th century using early instrumental and documentary records. This will involve a range of statistical and machine learning approaches, and should provide insight into historical weather and climate variability and extremes. Previously, Conall worked in the Irish meteorological service in the areas of climate monitoring and weather forecasting, and he has additional research experience in hydro-meteorology and renewable energy management.

Patrick Bigler started working as a junior assistant in the climatology group on the 1^st of February 2024. He will focus on the digitization of meteorological data from the 18th century but will also perform other tasks as a junior assistant to support the team. At the same time, he will be working on his master's thesis on the question of how katabatic winds cool the city of Biel during the summer and operating the temperature measurement network in the city of Biel. He is looking forward to working at GIUB, meeting new people from different backgrounds, and immersing himself in the world of science.

At Humboldt's desk in Oranienburger Strasse in Berlin, modern climate research was born. This is where Humboldt wrote his manuscripts, but countless letters, tables and drawings also passed over this desk. On the basis of selected sheets from Humboldt's estate, Dominik Erdmann and Stefan Brönnimann shed light on how our current image of the climate came into being in the book "Humboldts Wetterwekstatt" (see also the interview in the NZZ).

The heat of the last few days also had an effect on the night - between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. Celsius were still measured over 30 degrees Celsius in the city center.

(Twitter post of the University of Bern)

With global warming, floods could become stronger in the future. But in the past, flood-rich phases were often cold and not warm phases. How does that go together? A study by the institute shows that different mechanisms were at work. In the past, atmospheric circulation dominated flooding: the supply of cold, moist air. For about 40 years, warming has become more important: With the same circulation, warm air can contain more moisture, which leads to more intense precipitation. On the basis of data sets dating back 200 years, the two influences can now be separated for the first time.

Link to the article: https://www.bernerzeitung.ch/wie-die-erderwaermung-starkregen-beguenstigt-546634651947

How do hail, thunderstorms or even nice weather develop? Why are there such different weather conditions? And how does the weather differ from the climate? In the four episodes of this SRF School production, Olivia Romppainen (episode 1) explains the origin of the weather and Stefan Brönnimann (episode 4) explains the causes and consequences of urban heat.

Documentary climate data describes evidence of past climate stored in predominantly written historical documents like diaries, chronicles, newspapers, etc. These records offer unprecedented, high-resolution insights into past variations in temperature, precipitation, and wind as they cover seasons (e.g., cold season) and regions (e.g., East Asia) where we don't have much information from traditional data sources like tree rings. Termed DOCU-CLIM, this dataset comprises more than 600 time series from around the world, including many previously unpublished ones. The strong, significant correlations between the documentary observations and climate fields suggest that documentary records hold considerable potential for large-scale climate reconstruction and could contribute substantially to advancing our understanding of past climate variability. The paper by Angela-Maria Burgdorf and Stefan Brönnimann and coauthors was recently published in "Scientific Data": https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-023-02303-y

Film by Stefan Brönnimann, 30 min., https://youtu.be/QR6h2KBHfOI

Fritz Nussbaum worked as a teacher almost his entire life, but for 35 years he was head of Physical Geography on a part-time basis and led the Department of Geography through the crisis period of the 1930s and 1940s. He left his mark in Ice Age research, a rocky ridge in the Antarctic, with his voice against National Socialist geographers and in his home community of Zollikofen. The film, which was made as part of the 150th anniversary of the Bern Geographical Society, is the first part of a three-part series on the history of Bern's geography.

Setareh Amini started as a PhD student in the Climatology Group on the 1^st of May 2023. Her research focuses on generating maps of temperature indicators for various European cities and statistically investigating the impact of urban green areas on mitigating the urban heat island (UHI) effect. She obtained her master's degree in Agricultural Engineering-Water Resources from the International Imam Khomeini University in Iran. Her master's thesis focused on evaluating ensemble precipitation forecasts in various climate regions of Iran.

Moritz Burger

Bern experiences the hottest summer since 2003, with a new all-time record of 24.12 degrees on 4 August. The Bärnerbär goes on a tour of Bern with urban climate expert Moritz Burger to look for the warmest places. Hotspots in the truest sense of the word are Bubenbergplatz and Gerechtigkeitsgasse. It is cooler in Oberbottigen and, of course, on the Aare.

After an eventful year 2022, the Climatology Group wishes you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The work of the urban climate group and of Ana Vicedo was highlighted at this years "Dies Academicus" of the University of Bern, the annual commemoration of the University's foundation. At this occasion, the university produced a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6sIQoOVdBE

Nils Tinner started as a junior assistant on November the 1^st in the Climatology Group. He is looking forward getting to know the group and the staff of GIUB, working on interesting scientific projects and generally supporting the group.

Siyu Chen started her study in Climate Science as a PhD student in the Climatology Group on the 1st of November. Her research aims to make a comparison between historical extreme climate events in China and Europe. During her MA studies at the Beijing Normal University in China, she engaged in the social impacts and adaptation of historical natural disasters of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Wei Wang started in October as a Visiting PhD Student in the Climatology Group. He working with the estimation of air temperature and downward shortwave radiation at University of Electronic Science and Technology of China before he came to Bern. During his Visiting period in UniBe, he will work toward air temperature, radiation and combine them further and try to make something new.

October 2022 was warm - very warm. It was the warmest October in Switzerland since measurements began, in Bern every other day reaches the 20-degree mark. Stefan Brönnimann commented on this and on the warm summer of 2022 in general on the SRF Tagesschau and in Telebärn's talk show "Bärner Rundi".

Noémie Wellinger started working as a junior assistant in the Climatology group on the 1^st of October. This semester she will be focussing on a publication in the field of Urban Climatology in Bern and next year she will be taking more junior assistant tasks. She is currently studying for her Master's degree in Geography and part of the student’s association BENE. She is looking forward to working at GIUB and meeting new people from different backgrounds.

Hola a todos! I’m Nicolás Duque and am a Colombian PhD-Student in the climatology group. My master’s thesis was about improving hydrological estimates in poorly gauged regions, by using satellite and reanalysis data provided by the eartH2Observe project. In the PhD-project I’ll be more focused on the water balance variability and its interaction with climate variability and looking at its sources and proportions of contribution. The idea is also to look at how some socio-economic variables in tropical south America react to decadal variability. In free time, I love playing bowling, playing football and dancing Salsa, also like cooking to share thoughts. You’ll find me in Of. 501

A new, long column ozone series from Oxford helps better separating chemical and dynamical influences on the ozone layer. This shows that the recovery of the ozone layer, though not seen in mid-latitude observations, is underway but masked by changes in atmospheric dynamics. This is the conclusion of a paper by Stefan Brönnimann that has been published in "Communications Earth & Envorinment".

Records are already tumbling in June, Bern has already had several tropical nights, the Emme no water. In the Bernese podcast "gesprächstoff", the current heat is the topic - and how you can protect yourself from overheating.

https://www.bernerzeitung.ch/die-schattenseite-der-verfruehten-hitzewelle-184125994774