Climate Change

The buffet of healthy insects starts earlier, is no longer as varied, and is only half as plentiful as it once was. This is the situation faced by insectivorous birds at Northern Temperate latitudes, such as Switzerland, during the breeding season. Ryan Shipley from the Eawag water research institute, has been investigating how climate change affects the timing and quality of the food supply for breeding birds.

An international team of scientists conducted CALISHTO, a large-scale air measurement campaign in Greece last fall, with the goal of surveying, counting and characterizing the tiny particles and their impact on cloud formation. The goal is to incorporate this information in climate models for improved predictions of clouds, precipitation and climate.

More heat pumps in buildings and more electric cars on the roads will lead to an increase in electricity consumption in Switzerland in the future. To meet this increasing demand, we rely on electricity imports, which, however, often have a large carbon footprint, as they come from gas or coal-fired power plants, for example. In a new study, researchers from Empa and the University of Geneva sketch out various scenarios to show how Switzerland can reduce these CO₂-emitting electricity imports by diversifying the expansion of renewables.

For the first time, researchers at ETH Zurich have calculated in absolute figures the extent to which the production of chemicals is currently interfering with nature worldwide – and the results are staggering. In addition to greenhouse gas emissions, the new method also takes land use and freshwater consumption into account.

While glaciers are shrinking worldwide, those in the Pamir Mountains in Central Asia show less change. They and the other components of the cryosphere (snow and permafrost) are key unknowns for future changes to runoff and hazards. Over the next four years, a research consortium led by the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL and the University of Fribourg will comprehensively study this unique environment. The Swiss Polar Institute (SPI) has awarded CHF 1.5 million to this SPI Flagship Initiative.

Switzerland has around 800 municipal wastewater treatment plants. A recent study by Eawag researchers reveals the burden these plants place on the climate, and explores how emissions of climate-damaging nitrous oxide can be reduced.