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 …

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 …

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 …

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.

!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).

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 …

!(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 …

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?

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 …

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 …

!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 …

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 …

!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 …

!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 …

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 …