On Monday, 5 June 2023, I will give a talk (In German) at the Naturhistorische Gesellschaft (NHG) in Nuremberg on "Historical Droughts in Europe".

In the drought summer of 2022, pictures of "hunger stones" in dried-up river basins went through the press. In many historical sources our ancestors documented contemporary …

In the summer semester of 2023, I will be holding a course (in English) at the TH Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm on "Climate and Climate Change". With this course I want to teach students of all disciplines the scientific basics of the climate system and the relevant processes, so that …

I'm one of the organisers of an International Summer School on Greenhouse Gases at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) in Southampton in July; applications are open until 28 February. This intensive 1-week course with a mixture of lectures, exercises and excursions is aimed at PhD students and post-doctoral researchers in …

With several friends I am now a founding member of a new startup company: Algacraft LTD. Unicellular algae are a promising area for many future applications, from carbon capture to mitigate atmospheric greenhouse gas increases via the treatment of waste water and organic waste to the production of nutrients, food …

Observing and understanding natural phenomena - this is the motto of principia. The new website (in German) is dedicated to patterns, structures and other phenomena that you can observe around you. It is curated by Andrea Kamphuis and Stephan Matthiesen.

Exactly 10 years ago, in December 2008, we started to describe …

!Zeitungsausschnitt (images/texte/0141/Nordkap-S1.jpg)

Vor einer Weile berichteten die Nürnberger Nachrichten, dass eine Nürnbergerin, Nora Beyer, mit dem Fahrrad auf dem Weg zum Nordkap war; ihre Eindrücke schilderte sie regelmäßig auf Instagram. Voller Begeisterung schrieb ich einen Leserbrief:

"Der Bericht über Nora Beyers Nordkapfahrt inspiriert sehr – und erinnerte …

"Da liegen ja ganz viele Blätter auf dem Weg durch den Craigmillar Castle Park", sagte Maus.

!Mouse (a soft toy mouse) looking at leaves on a path(images/texte/0134/Pongo-Maus-01.jpg)

!A path full of leaves(images/texte/0134/Pongo-Maus-02.jpg)

"Ich glaube, du hast recht mit den Blättern …

"There are awfully many leaves on the path in Craigmillar Castle Park", said Mouse.

!Mouse (a soft toy mouse) looking at leaves on a path(images/texte/0134/Pongo-Maus-01.jpg)

!A path full of leaves(images/texte/0134/Pongo-Maus-02.jpg)

"I think you're right about all the leaves", said Pongo …

On Monday, 15 October 2018, I will give a talk (in German) on "Climate and history: 1816, the year without a summer" at the Naturhistorischen Gesellschaft (NHG). After the eruption of the volcano Tampora, Indonesia, in April 1815 the following year 1816 was a "year without summer" in Europe with …

On the 31st of October my contract at the University of Edinburgh came to an end, and I will work mainly freelance in future. Since 2006 I have worked at the School of Geosciences at the University as scientific project manager in different climate-related research projects, but I also worked …

My new website "Klima und Geschichte" ("climate and history") is now online at the URL www.klima-und-geschichte.de. With this website I combine my interests in archaeology with my interests in climate science.

Both disciplines see rapid advances of new research, and we understand increasingly better how human history has …

On Wednesday, 18 October 2017, I will give a presentation at the Society Society for Natural History (NHG) in Nuremberg on the Crisis of the civilisations in Antiquity around the 22nd century AD. At this time, the Old Kongdom and the Akkad Empire collapsed. Climatological data show a drought that …

Today, temperature seems a straightforward idea that is easy to measure. But like all scientific concepts that are tought in schools, it has not always been so obvious. Thousands of years, many careful and dedicated researchers and knowledge exchange across times and cultures were necessary before we began to understand …

At the next General Assembly of the European Geoscientific Union (EGU) in Vienna (17-22 April 2016) I will again contribute to two sessions. I convene the session on greenhouse gas fluxes on local, regional and global scales using atmosphere, ocean and biosphere measurements.The EarthTemp session on measuring the surface …

On Saturday, 7 November, an information day will be held in Nuremberg, Germany, about the forthcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Paris. I contribute with a presentation about the scientific background, and will take part in a panel discussion. The event takes place from 14.00 in the Künstlerhaus Nürnberg …

In 2016 I will again contribute to the programme of the Society for Natural History (NHG) in Nuremberg, this time with two evening talks on the impact of past climate changes on human history.

"Climate and human history" had been the topic of longer evening courses that I held in …

The Greenhouse Gases Emissions and Feedback Programme is organising Joint Greenhouse Gas Meeting in Edinburgh on 2-4 November 2015; we expect about 100 attendees. The third day, Wed 4 Nov, is an inclusive meeting to connect with the wider research community, it is free and open to every researcher interested …

As part of the Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Feedback Programme, I'm organising an event at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. "Mission: Climate Science" will feature hands-on activities on greenhouse gas research, and performances will demonstrate how an airborne research campaign is planned and conducted.

The exhibition with drop-in activities and …

On Monday I will give a talk about the climate at Lake Victoria, organised by the Society for Natural History (NHG) in Nuremberg., Germany. The Lake is not only an important economic driver (e.g. for fishery and transport) for 30 to 40 million people who live in the Lake …

!Poster(images/aktuell/0112/GHG-Summerschool-Edinburgh-2015-Poster.jpg)Poster (PDF, 3Mb)

We are organising a summer school on 16-23 August 2015, aimed at advanced PhD students and post-doctoral researchers in the natural sciences who want to develop a solid understanding of the role of key greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the Earth system …

In 2015, I again organise a session on measuring the surface temperatures of Earth at the General Assembly of the European Geoscientific Union (EGU) on 12-17 April 2015 in Vienna. It continues the session that we have offered successfully in the last two years. Abstracts can be submitted through the …

Within the Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Feedback Programme we are organising a 'Greenhouse Gas Townhall Meeting' at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton on 7th-8th January 2015.

This meeting is a community strategy meeting to bring the atmospheric, oceanographic and terrestrial research communities together and identify concrete research gaps and …

!(images/aktuell/0105/20140818_212112.jpg)

"End of species" is a monologue by Australian artist Richard Pettifer, arranged by ASCUS, the art-science collaborative, every day from 18th to 25th August 2014 at 8pm in Summerhall, interweaving his journey over land from Australia to Germany with Charles Darwin's famous journey. After the …

Die Auferstehung Christi ließe sich medizinisch erklären, wenn Jesus bei der Geißelung einen Pleuraerguss erlitt, der ihn am Kreuz bewusstlos werden ließ. Der Lanzenstoß entsprach dann einer Pleurapunktion, die auch heute noch eine der wichtigste Notfallmaßnahmen bei Pleuraergüssen ist, sodass Jesus überlebte und einige Tage später aus der Bewusstlosigkeit erwachte …

The programme for the General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) in Vienna is now online. Our EarthTemp session on "Taking the temperature of the Earth", continuing last year's highly successful session, has been scheduled for Tuesday, 29. April 2014, at 10:30-12:00.

Our session will be one …

The two presentations (in German) on Climate Change (29 April 2013) and Boreal Forest Fires and Air Quality (1 July 2013), presented at the Society for Natural History (NHG) in Nürnberg, Germany, are now available as PDFs in the section Material.

Der Vortrag bei der Naturhistorischen Gesellschaft (NHG) Nürnberg am 1. Juli 2013 berichtet über unsere Arbeit über die Auswirkungen von borealen Waldbränden in Kanada auf die Atmosphärenchemie und die Luftqualität.

!Vortrag NHG Waldbrände(images/material/0099/Matthiesen_NHG_2013-07-01_Waldbraende.png)

Präsentation: PDF (5.3 MiB)

Weitere Informationen

• BORTAS Sonderband der Zeitschrift Atmospheric …

Der Vortrag bei der Naturhistorischen Gesellschaft (NHG) in Nürnberg vom 29. April 2013 gibt einen kurzen Überblick über Klimaveränderungen in Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft.

Präsentation: PDF-Datei (3.0 MiB)

Zum Weiterlesen

• Weltklimarat (IPCC)

Deutsche Übersetzungen wichtiger Teile der IPCC-Berichte (Synthesebericht, Zusammenfassungen für Entscheidungsträger) gibt es frei herunterladbar bei der Deutschen …

!Earth's surface temperatures; from Merchant et al. 2013, GID (CC-BY 3.0)(images/aktuell/0096/EarthTemp-Scenery.png)

The EarthTemp community position paper, which reviews the state of art of measuring the surface temperatures of Earth and recommends steps to improve our understanding, has been published as a discussion paper in …

The programm for the EarthTemp Workshop "Characterising surface temperatures in data-sparse and extreme regions (with focus on high-latitude domains)" on the 12.-14. Juni in Copenhagen now available on the EarthTemp website.The workshop focusses on the specific challenges of measuring temperatures in higher latitudes, but it is also open …

My oral presentation and my poster at the General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union are now available (see also the overview over our EGU conference sessions).

A poster summarising the ongoing work on characterising the model errors of plume forcasts during the BORTAS project. The poster was presented on 10 April 2013 at the General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union in our session on "Impacts of boreal wildfires on tropospheric Ozone" (for more details on …

This presentation "The Surface Temperatures of the Earth: Steps towards Integrated Understanding of Variability and Change" introduces the oral part of the session on "Taking the temperature of the Earth" at the General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna. It summarises the recommendations that we developed in the …

The programme of the General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU), including the two sessions that we have organised, is now online. The session on measuring the surface temperatures of Earth will take place on Monday and Tuesday (8 and 9 April), the session on impacts of boreal wildfires …

The overview paper for the BORTAS project has just been published. It introduces the background and setup to the BORTAS consortium, which aims to "Quantify the impact of BOReal forest fires on Tropospheric oxidants over the North Atlantic using Aircraft and Satellite". The paper is open access and currently in …

The open studies course "Patterns in Nature" starts again today (14 January 2013) and will run for 10 weeks every Monday evening. We will review and discuss a number of pattern formation processes that can be observed in nature. More details about the course, and the course material, can be …

Ten evening sessions on the mechanisms of pattern formation in Nature, running from January to March 2013 as part of the open studies programme at Edinburgh University.

Course Information

Why do trees look like trees and snowflakes like snowflakes? How do termites build elaborate structures without supervision? What can boiling …

!(images/aktuell/0081/kijk-2012-12-cover.jpg)Title of the Magazine Kijk 12/2012

The effect of climatic changes on human history is the topic of the article “10.000 years of powerful climate” by Marysa van den Berg in the current issue of the Dutch science magazine Kijk. The author had …

Kennt das jemand? Als enthusiastischer Wissenschaftler mag man sich gerne mit interessierten Nichtwissenschaftlern über seine Arbeit austauschen und Interessierte auch mal selbst experimentieren lassen. Wenn da bloß nicht immer diese Trolle auftauchen würden, die einem mit Halbwissen die Zeit stehlen und immer beleidigender werden, wenn man ihren wirren Weltbildern nicht …

Is an e-book reader a suitable tool for carrying your research library with you? Like most scientists, I have a large collection of research papers (as PDF files) and want to have them with me, so that can read when I'm on the bus, in a café, waiting for a …

New on the EarthTemp website: the position paper arising from the first EarthTemp workshop isnow online. It details the main recommendations that are, in our view, useful steps towards an integrated understanding of the variability and change of the Earth's surface temperatures.

The programme committee has now approved two conference sessions, on "Taking the surface temperature of the Earth" and on the "Impact of boreal wildfires on tropospheric chemistry", which I had submitted to the General Assembly of the European Geoscience Union (EGU). EGU conference sessions need at least 20 talks and …

Welcome to my revised Website. Much has remained the same, but there are are also a few changes and plans for the future. Enjoy reading!

The most important change is the new comments function. In the sections "News" and "Texts/Blog" you can now directly respond to articles. I'm looking …

The first images and impressions from the EarthTemp meeting (25-27 June 2012) are now on the EarthTemp website. There is an elephant in the room - who can see it?

The Open Studies course "Climate and Human History" at the Office for Lifelong Learning, the University of Edinburgh, looks at the impact of climate and climatic variations on certain periods of world history. It runs for 10 afternoons from 19 January 2012, each week on Thursdays at 2pm-4pm.

Course Information …

A Special Issue of the scientific journal "Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP)" has just been launched. By the end of next year, this issue will contain the publications from the Bortas project. Editors are (besides myself) Bryan Duncan (NASA), Paul Monks (Uni Leicester) and Rob MacKenzie (Uni Birmingham).

ACP is …

Ten morning sessions on the mechanisms of pattern formation in Nature, running form January to March 2011 as part of the open studies programme at Edinburgh University.

Course Information

Why do trees look like trees and snowflakes like snowflakes? How do termites build elaborate structures without supervision? What can boiling …

The Open Studies course "Climate and Human History" at the Office for Lifelong Learning, the University of Edinburgh, looks at the impact of climate and climatic variations on certain periods of world history. It runs for 10 afternoons from 12 January 2010, each week on Tuesday at 2pm-4pm.

Course Information …

13. November 2009: Why shouldn’t parents have perfect babies? (Press release, ESRC Genomics Forum)

Press release of the Genomics Forum at the University of Edinburgh about the Biomedical Ethics Film Festival (20-22. Nov.).I'm quoted with a statement the our increasing biomedical knowledge raises fundamental questions what it means …

"... he noticed the green liana which had grown from the pot plant and reached his body. Every movement became impossible, and every scream was smothered by the plant material that was growing around his mouth and throat. ... Were the plants taking revenge on humankind, or had aliens conquered the planet …

The Mausoleum of Augustus, which was built in 28 BC, was one of the major buildings erected by Augustus Octavian. Given that Octavian was a shrewd politician, who was able to play the power games of his time very successfully, one would expect that he designed his Mausoleum not only …

!Screenshot science-texts(images/aktuell/0033/science-texts-website.png)

With new content and new technology, we have relaunched the website of our editorial team science-texts today. Unlike the old static page, the new site contains not only detailed information about Andrea Kamphuis' and my work, but also texts and news about topics …

Teile des Frühmittelalters sind eine Fälschung — wohl die meisten Menschen, die diese These zum ersten Mal hören, reagieren spontan ablehnend. Doch dann liest man Texte von Heribert Illig, und man kommt vielleicht ins Nachdenken, ob man die These vom erfundenen Mittelalter vorschnell abgelehnt hat, weil sie auf den ersten Blick …

Wie wichtig waren Trancezustände im Leben und der Religion unserer schriftlosen Vorfahren? Eine archäologisch schwer greifbare Frage, können wir doch das Steinzeitleben nur aus wenigen materiellen Hinterlassenschaften rekonstruieren. Immaterielle Aspekte wie schamanische Praktiken scheinen sich dagegen unserer Untersuchung zu entziehen.

Zwar zeigen ethnografische Forschungen bei Kulturen der Gegenwart, dass religiöse …

Ten evenings about the mechanisms of pattern formation in Nature form this evening class which is held again from January to March 2009 as part of the open studies programme at The University of Edinburgh. When the course was held in spring 2008 for the first time, it was fully …

Yesterday I was elected Chairman of the Edinburgh and South East Scotland Branch of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. It is a great honour to fill this post in an organisation with such a long and fruitful tradition, and I am looking forward to my new responsibilities …

Die in der Bibel beschriebene Beobachtung des Propheten Hesekiel von Feuerrädern und Figuren am Himmel hat zu vielen Spekulationen geführt. Präastronautiker sehen in ihr die Beschreibung eines außerirdischen Raumschiffs. Doch Geowissenschaftler schlagen nun vor, dass der Prophet vielleicht ein Polarlicht beobachtet haben könnte.

„Und ich sah: Und siehe, ein Sturmwind …

!Monkeys and Apes in the Wild(images/aktuell/0026/buch_arndt_monkeys.jpg)

"Monkeys and Apes in the Wild" by Ingo Arndt and Fritz Jatschke, which I translated into English last winter, is now available from Papadakis. With magnificent wildlife photographs and knowledgeable texts, it introduces important species of apes and monkeys …

On 8 and 9 March 2008 we organise a Polar Weekend family event at Our Dynamic Earth. Hands-on activities and presentations give people of all ages the opportunity to learn about important topics in polar research. I'm organising the event for the Edinburgh and South East Scotland Branch of the …

Ten evenings about the mechanisms of pattern formation in Nature form this evening class which is held from January to March 2008 as part of the open studies programme at The University of Edinburgh.

Course Information

Why do trees look like trees and snowflakes like snowflakes? How do termites build …

!Buchcover Von Sinnen(images/aktuell/0027/buch_matthiesen_von_sinnen.jpg)

Now available in the bookshops is the volume "Von Sinnen - Traum und Trance, Rausch und Rage aus Sicht der Hirnforschung", based on a conference by turmdersinne in 2005. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only German book that introduces …

My evening class at at the Office for Lifelong Learning, the University of Edinburgh, investigates the effects of climate change on some periods of world history. It runs for 10 evenings from 26 Sep. 2007.

Course Information

With Global Warming constantly in the media the science of climate change has …

3 July 2007: Polar Meltdown at the Royal Society (Press release, National Environmental Research Council)

The press release from the National Environmental Research Council (NERC) about our stall at the Royal Society Summer Exhibition in London, for which I developed a demonstration experiment showing the effects of climate change on …

This course introduces the fundamentals which govern atmospheric circulation including steady and unsteady flows and wave motions in the tropics and mid-latitudes and their role in transporting heat. Meteorological data will be used to illustrate phenomena such as cyclones, jetstreams and ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation).

Upon successful completion of …

Neben anderen Argumenten aus der historischen Forschung ist die Radiokarbondatierung des Turiner Grabtuches ein starkes und naturwissenschaftliches Indiz dafür, dass die berühmte Reliquie aus dem Mittelalter und nicht aus neutestamentlicher Zeit stammt. Worauf beruht diese Messung, und welche Fehlerquellen muss man beachten?

Grundprinzip

Die Radiokarbon- oder 14C-Methode (sprich: „C-14“) ist …

Warum glauben Menschen an Dinge, für die mitunter wenig objektive Belege existieren, warum sind wir "abergläubisch"? Eine interessante Frage, die uns viel über unser eigenes Denk- und Urteilsvermögen bzw. dessen Grenzen sagen kann — zeigt es sich doch, dass die meisten psychologischen Prozesse im Zusammenhang mit dem Para-Glauben keineswegs außergewöhnlich oder …

After 200 years of almost complete seclusion from the rest of the World, in 1853 Japan was suddenly thrown into turmoil by the appearance of Commodore Perry with his “Black ships” in Uraga, threatening military action if negociations to open the country were not started immediately. The decades to follow …

Unter Placebo-Effekten versteht man grob die Beobachtung, dass bereits durch die Erwartung einer Heilung die Selbstheilungskräfte des Körpers aktiviert zu werden scheinen, selbst wenn bei einer Behandlung gar keine z. B. pharmakologisch wirksamen Substanzen verabreicht werden. Viele Studien zeigen, dass Placebo-Effekte weit verbreitet und von erheblichem Ausmaß sind, selbst bei …

„Sind Geister nur tiefe Töne?“, ging es durch die Presse. Forscher hatten entdeckt, dass unhörbar tiefe Töne unangenehme Gefühle verursachen — und manche alten Gemäuer können wie extrem tiefe Orgelpfeifen wirken. Eine schöne naturalistische Erklärung für ein paranormales Phänomen, nun wissen wir endlich, was an Geistern dran ist — nichts als tiefe …

„Die Ur-Germanen trieben Astronomie. Goldgewandete Priester peilten den Mond in Hinkelstein-Tempeln an. Plötzlich offenbart sich eine verschollene Hochkultur.“, schrieb der Spiegel über den Fund der Himmelsscheibe von Nebra. Doch Fachleute waren nicht begeistert: „Fazit: So viel Schrott, Verzeihung Ur-Schrott, war nie“, kommentierte ein Archäologe den Bericht lakonisch auf der deutschen …

„Sowohl in Ägypten als auch in Peru gibt es Mumien. Gab es vielleicht lange vor Kolumbus eine gemeinsame Kultur zwischen den Kontinenten?“ Fragen wie diese höre ich nicht selten, wenn ich etwa auf Wissenschaftsfestivals die Rolle des „Wissenschaftlers zum Anfassen“ übernehme. Eine Frage, auf die viele Archäologen verschnupft reagieren, hat …

Gasausbrüche werden von Skeptiker gerne als Erklärung herangezogen, um die seltsamen Berichte über das Bermudadreieck naturalistisch zu erklären - so kommt man ohne Außerirdische oder Zeittunnel aus. Doch was leistet diese Erklärung wirklich?

Die Theorie, dass Gasausbrüche das mysteriöse Verschwinden von Schiffen und Flugzeugen im Bermudadreieck erklären können, wurde offenbar erstmals …

!Buchcover Zeitler Mykene Nürnberg Stonehenge(images/texte/0030/buch_zeitler_mykene.jpg)

Aus archäologischen Quellen wissen wir, dass es in der mittleren Bronzezeit Güter- und Ideenaustausch zwischen Großbritannien und Kontinentaleuropa gab. Wie aber fand der Warentransport über längere Strecken statt? Aus den wenigen archäologischen Funden ein zufriedenstellendes Bild des Güteraustausches zu gewinnen …

The investigation of antique trade links has become rather fashionable in recent years. However, while archaeological methods can clarify the question which goods were exchanged between which cultures, it is by no means clear whether such an exchange of goods is to be interpreted as evidence for “trade”, nor is …

The archaeological evidence in Pompeii can give us some information about oriental or mystery cults, mainly the cults of Isis and of Dionysos. There are different types of archaeological sources which differ in the kind of information they can provide us with. Paintings and mosaics give us an pictorial impression …