News and Events

An article by Stefan Brönnimann in Spektrum der Wissenschaft on climate and weather reconstructions also reports on the study led by Christian Pfister on the use of wine quality as a climate indicator.
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Enganged UniBe supports the ‘UrbanLab Viererfeld’ project, which involves various units of the GIUB as well as researchers from the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine and the Physics Institute. Together with the City of Bern, the Engehalde neighbourhood, Neufeld High School and others, the project accompanies and researches the construction of the new neighbourhood from the perspective of the multifaceted interactions between newly emerging residential structures and environmental factors.

At the DACH2025 conference in Bern, Stefan Brönnimann received the Paulus Award of the of the German Meteorological Society for his contributions to the history of meteorology.

Laila Seehausen started on the 15th of March as PhD student in the Climatology Group. She studies the impacts of climate variability and management strategies on cropping systems at the Altiplano in the Central Andes. She finished her studies at the Leibniz University Hannover with a master's degree in meteorology. Afterwards, she worked for four years at the German Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources in water projects in Central Africa in the framework of the German Cooperation. Her work included hydrological modeling and scenario development.

New 3-dimensional climate reconstructions allow studying the variability of the Atlantic-European jet stream back to the 15th century. A study of the climatology group shows that hydroclimatic extremes were often related to excursion in the jet and that recent changes in the jet are within the variability seen over the past 600 years.

This year's prize for the best master's thesis in geosciences goes to Daniela Friebel for her work on thermal sensation in two districts of the city of Bern. It mapped places of well-being and discomfort during summer heat phases from the perspective of the neighbourhood residents. The resulting maps allow unusual insights into the perception of urban space.

After an eventful year 2024, the Climatology Group wishes you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Photo: KEYSTONE/Peter Klaunzer can be found at https://www.journal21.ch/bild-des-tages/bern-im-fruehen-winterkleid

Nils Tinner, master's student and assistant of the climatology group, was mentioned in an article of the university newspaper "uniFokus", due to his development of the 'Bernometer' app.

You can find the article under the following Link on page 40.

Charles Pierce joined the Urban Climate sub-group of the Climatology group on November 1^st as a PhD student. He is working on heat indices for characterizing health impacts due to heatwaves on continental and city scales. Charles studied mechanical engineering at EPFL and ETH and worked in the private sector until turning his attention to Climate Science. He started the MSc in Climate Science in Bern, where his interest in long-term research led him to transition into a PhD program.

Martin Wegmann, "Data Steward" at the University of Bern, supports researchers in data management and emphasizes that this is also a contribution to society. Since taxpayers finance research, he sees science as having a responsibility to give back knowledge. According to the UN, free access to scientific data is central to combating global problems such as climate change. Wegmann cites old temperature measurement series as an example, which classify today's heat waves historically. The University of Bern makes its data publicly available for at least ten years. A central concern remains the management of large amounts of data and the trade-off between scope and openness.

Martin Wegmann (and member of the climatology group) in an interview about open data and research data management. Click here for the article.

1740 was the coldest year in Central Europe of (at least) the past 600 years. A daily weather reconstruction shows the worst-case sequence of weather systems leading to this extreme.

Chinwe Speranza and Thomas Breu in an interview with uni AKTUELL.

Lorenz Hilfiker joined the Climatology group on September 1st as a research assistant. His work at GIUB focuses on the methodical conception and technical implementation of data assimilation for the monthly reconstruction of the climate of the past 600 years (ModE-RA). Lorenz studied physics and mathematics in Bern, Berlin and Durham, and he holds a PhD in mathematics from the University of Hamburg. Driven by his interdisciplinary curiosity, he has recently completed a second master’s degree in statistics and data science at University of Bern.

We announce an open PhD position in climate and weather extremes in the Central Andes and their effect on agriculture. Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, the project aims at providing information for building a decision support system for agriculture in the Central Andes. 

For more information, click here.

The Urban Climate Group's measurement networks are expanding. Noémie Wellinger gave an interview to Livia Bieri of the Thuner Tagblatt.

Today, Lucas Pfister successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled "Exploring Approaches of "Quantitative Historical Weather Reconstruction over Europe". Congratulations, Lucas! Thanks for the past eight years in our research group as a student, MSc and PhD candidate.

Wine must quality makes for excellent growing-season temperature reconstructions back to the 15th century. The paper by Christian Pfister and co-authors, highlighted in "Nature" and "Science" shows that recent wine must quality in the past 20 years exceeds any period in the past.

How hot is it in your street? Where is it coolest right now? Current measurements and maps, 5-day forecasts, warnings, health tips and more can be found in the Bernometer (bernometer.ch).

App download for Android and Apple

More information about the project