News 2022
Climate records from the top of the world
7 December 2022
OCCR member Hendrik Vogel is the PI of a project which has been awarded an SNSF Sinergia grant. The project is entitled: “Deep biosphere-geosphere interactions at the top of the world (DIGESTED): An interdisciplinary approach to interpret a Myr climate record from Lake Nam Co, Tibetan Plateau”. SNSF Synergia Grants are highly coveted and are endowed with approx. 3 million Swiss Francs.
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OCCR researchers advise Human Rights Court
5 December 2022
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. Researchers from the OCCR are contributing their expertise to this case, which is attracting a great deal of international attention.
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OCCR research highlighted at Dies academicus
3 December 2022
OCCR researchers Ana Vicedo (Climate Change and Health group) and Moritz Burger (Climatology group) were the protagonists of a video on current high-profile research created for the Dies academicus, the annual ceremony at which the University of Bern celebrates its foundation in 1834.
Video
Extreme humid heat and health
15 November 2022
OCCR member Ana Vicedo has been awarded an SNSF Starting Grant. Her project “Advancing research on extreme humid heat and health” is one of the winners among 445 applications submitted. The SNSF Starting Grant goes to researchers who want to carry out an independent project in Switzerland with their own team. Ana Vicedo’s project is supported with CHF 1,8 Million.
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Charting Antarctic Ice Sheet evolution
15 November 2022
OCCR member Johannes Sutter has been awarded an SNSF Starting Grant. His project "Charting Antarctic Ice Sheet evolution via the ice sheet’s internal stratigraphy" is one of the winners among 445 applications submitted. The SNSF Starting Grant goes to researchers who want to carry out an independent project in Switzerland with their own team. Johannes Suter's project is supported with CHF 1,8 Million.
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Inclusive decision-making
14 November 2022
OCCR Vice-President Karin Ingold is one of the authors of "10 New Findings of Climate Science". This synthesis for policy and society is regularly produced by three global research platforms and was presented at COP27 in Sharm El Sheik. Karin Ingold co-authored the chapter on decision-making, which states, among other things: "Inclusive and empowering governance is crucial to enable climate-resilient development."
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“A race against time”
1 October 2022
OCCR member Margit Schwikowski chairs the Organizing Committee for the International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences (IPICS) Conference which takes place from 2 to 7 October 2022 in the Swiss resort Crans-Montana. The theme of the conference is Ice Core Science at the three Poles. “Our field of research faces a massive problem: more and more glaciers worldwide are melting and the melt-water percolating into them is destroying all embedded signals locked in there for many thousands of years”, she said in an interview. “It is a race against time.”
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2022 was a normal summer in the 21st century
29 September 2022
Heat, drought, danger of forest fires - conditions like those in 2022 will soon become the norm with climate change. The summer of 2022 will even be one of the cooler summers of the 21st century if we fail in significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades. This is what OCCR researchers write in an additional chapter of the booklet "Heat and Dry Summers in Switzerland", which has just been published.
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Lead on Climate Policy for the G7
27 June 2022
In an op-ed piece in the journal Issues in Science and Technology of the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine OCCR President Thomas Stocker calls on the G7 countries to take the lead in climate policy: "They have the chance to lead the implementation of measures, avoiding major disruptions and conflicts that are sure to come with further heating."
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Research competition for young people on environmental issues
24 June 2022
As a scientific partner, the OCCR, together with the environmental education organisation GLOBE Switzerland, organised the largest research competition for young people in Switzerland to date. 1,400 participants from all parts of Switzerland took part. Thematically, the GLOBE Contest was limited to the areas of biodiversity, climate change, soil, and water quality. The winners of the competition were chosen at a Young People's Environmental Conference at the University of Bern.
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High distinction
20 April 2022
The Director of the Oeschger Centre, Prof. Martin Grosjean, has been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (Germany). The Leopoldina is the oldest scientific and medical learned society in the German-speaking world and the oldest permanently existing academy of natural sciences in the world. It has around 1,600 members. Congratulations on this high distinction!
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On course
10 April 2022
The Mobiliar Lab for Natural Risks is on course. At an event on 18 May 2022, it will look back on ten years of research in the areas of floods, hail, and storms. All these projects are characterised by a high level of practical relevance. This is evidenced, among other things, by the various digital tools that were created as part of the "Flood Risk Research Initiative". The anniversary event on Lake Thun is free of charge and open to all interested parties.
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World Food: Ukraine War as Momentum for Change?
8 April 2022
Political scientist Lukas Fesenfeld is an OCCR member and is intensively engaged in the political feasibility of a transformative climate and food policy. Because Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine can drastically damage the food situation in the global South, Fesenfeld has initiated an appeal to politicians. He explains why in an interview.
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ERC Consolidator Grant
17 March 2022
OCCR member Mattias Erb was awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant for his project “CANWAS - Volatile Information Transfer Across Multiple Plants”. CANWAS is researching a new method for activating natural plant defenses in a targeted manner using scents. The long-term goal of the project is to enable agriculture to prepare entire fields for stress situations such as drought or herbivore attack by activating such defenses of entire populations.
Extreme temperatures come at a high price
11 March 2022
A study prepared at the OCCR shows in detail for the first time how heat in Switzerland has increasingly led to high death rates over the past 50 years. The combination of climate change and an aging population, it concludes, will become a major source of problems in the future.
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No. 1 in the media
24 January 2022
OCCR member Ana Vicedo-Cabrera was the lead author of the climate paper most featured in the media in 2021. This is reported by "Carbon Brief", a UK-based website covering the latest developments in climate science, climate policy and energy policy. The study on heat-related mortality attributable to climate change was picked up in 865 online news stories by 617 media outlets. The study was also mentioned by 69 blog posts and 1 286 tweets.
Three ERC Starting Grants for OCCR members
17 January 2022
The OCCR was exceptionally successful in the calls for ERC Starting Grants 2021. Three of the four grants awarded to researchers at the University of Bern went to members of the OCCR.
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Tracking pesticides in the environment
18 January 2022
uniaktuell, the online magazine of the University of Bern, presents highly qualified researchers who are supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF with an assistant professorship. For example, chemist and OCCR member Aurea C. Chiaia-Hernández. Her research tracks the transport of pesticides in the environment to study their effects and impacts on aquatic ecosystems and identify threats to human health.