wire - news in brief

A work drafted by Alexander von Humboldt but no longer published is being edited at the University of Bern. It contains a pioneering study on global ocean currents, which is more relevant than ever in view of the dwindling Gulf Stream. What would it be like if Beethoven's tenth symphony could be completed?

Data collected by satellites, drones, radars and microscopes provide a goldmine of information to better understand our environment. And when these data are coupled with artificial intelligence (AI), they can unlock the secrets of phenomena taking place at all levels. In a rapidly changing world where environmental threats abound, obtaining a better understanding of natural and anthropogenic processes can help corroborate points of view, guide conservation and renewal efforts, and orient new research.

Despite a wet and grey June, summers in Switzerland are getting hotter than expected. The increased summer temperatures harbour risks that we are not well prepared for, says Dominik Schumacher.

The landslide in Brienz (GR) in 2023 kept Switzerland on tenterhooks for weeks. Researchers from ETH Zurich, WSL and SLF used a model to provide a highly accurate blind prediction of where the sliding mass would come to rest. ETH Professor Johan Gaume explains how the model works and where its limitations lie.

Number, size, surroundings and water level: for the first time, there are quantitative scientific recommendations when it comes to the development of new ecological infrastructures for amphibian conservation.

Number, size, surroundings and water level: for the first time, there are quantitative scientific recommendations when it comes to the development of new ecological infrastructures for amphibian conservation.

Lake trout migrate between different habitats many times over their lives. This helps them grow larger and have more offspring than sedentary trout.

A team of researchers from Germany and Switzerland involving Empa is setting a milestone in weather and climate research: At the beginning of February, the renowned climate and weather model ICON has become available to all interested parties under an open source license. This is intended to make science and the scientific services behind it more transparent.

As part of the Ice Memory initiative, PSI researchers, with colleagues from the University of Fribourg and Ca- Foscari University of Venice as well as the Institute of Polar Sciences of the Italian National Research Council (CNR), analysed ice cores drilled in 2018 and 2020 from the Corbassière glacier at Grand Combin in the canton of Valais.

Exploring the climate crisis with Jérôme Chappellaz, environmental scientist and academic director of ALPOLE at EPFL.

Craig Walton is the first NOMIS Fellow at the Centre for Origin and Prevalence of Life at ETH Zurich.

EPFL's Habitat Research Center has created the first atlas of Paris landscapes, after winning a request for proposals by the French government and the City of Paris.

If we want to achieve our climate goals and prevent irreversible changes to the Earth's climate system, we not only need to curb our greenhouse gas emissions, but also remove excess man-made CO2 from the atmosphere.

Capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and storing it either in recycled concrete aggregate or in geological reservoirs in Iceland is not only technically feasible, but also has a positive carbon footprint.

SLF biologist Christian Rixen writes about his expedition to Greenland in the footsteps of historical botanists - and climate change.

SLF biologist Christian Rixen writes about his expedition to Greenland in the footsteps of historical botanists - and climate change.

GreenFjord is a four-year research program intended to investigate how climate change is affecting ecosystems in southern Greenland.

GreenFjord is a four-year research program intended to investigate how climate change is affecting ecosystems in southern Greenland.

To prevent irreversible and damaging changes to the Earth's climate system, we need to remove excess (man-made) CO2 from the atmosphere.

Along the coast of East Greenland lie some of the most untouched fjords and glacier landscapes in the world.

Using applied mathematics, Yunan Yang finds solutions to the inverse problems that arise in seismology, weather forecasts, and machine learning.

Heavier rain, longer droughts, melting glaciers: climate change has a dramatic impact on the global water cycle.

Yesterday, Swiss President Alain Berset toured the Carbfix plant in Iceland and visited the facilities where the pilot project "DemoUpCARMA" is implemented.

ETH Zurich researcher Luca Dal Zilio offers an insightful summary of the recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, shedding light on the complex nature of this event.

Manuela Brunner leads the new Hydrology & Climate Impacts in Mountain Regions research group at the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF.

To build awareness about the importance of oceans, Sailowtech, a student association, has launched a project to develop low-tech methods for collecting data at sea.

The Swiss Seismological Service at ETH Zurich has just introduced the first seismic risk model for Switzerland.

Atmospheric chemist Thomas Peter retired at the end of January. A profile of a man who taught us about the properties and processes of suspended particles and helped shape the second-largest department at ETH Zurich.

The snowfall level is rising, and the amount of snow falling - if any - is less than usual. As a result, summer and autumn droughts are becoming more frequent.

One of the greatest unknowns in climate change is the question of how particulate matter affects clouds. Yu Wang is using machine learning and satellite data to investigate the surprising role of these tiny particles in the atmosphere. In autumn 2014, Iceland's Holuhraun volcano erupted, spewing daily about 120,000 tonnes of sulphur dioxide into the air at its peak.

Christophe Girot brought landscape architecture into the digital world and taught a generation of architects how to think on a larger scale.

Life has existed on Earth for billions of years. Stabilising mechanisms have helped our planet remain habitable to this day.

The lander's team has tried to contact the spacecraft twice without response, leading them to conclude it has run out of energy. NASA's InSight mission has ended after four years of collecting unique science on Mars.

Internationally recognized atmospheric scientist and Distinguished Senior Researcher at Empa: Dominik Brunner is a scientist who has explored his subject area from many angles - with a weatherproof motivation and curiosity that drives him to this day.

Terrestrial and aquatic food webs respond differently to changes in the environment. Understanding these differences is fundamental to identifying the species most important to an ecosystem and to effectively protecting biodiversity. This is shown by a study led by the research institutes Eawag and WSL and published in the journal Nature Communications .

Belgian-born Wim Malfait is a trained geologist who once searched for gold on behalf of a mining company. Today, he heads the Building Energy Materials and Components laboratory, which develops, among other things, super-lightweight aerogel insulation materials and materials with heat exchange capabilities.

2022 was a disastrous year for Swiss glaciers: all ice melt records were smashed by the great dearth of snow in winter and continuous heatwaves in summer.

Of over a thousand lakes studied worldwide, about one in ten shows strange behaviour. In general, there is an increasing tendency for aquatic ecosystems to tip over.