Extreme environments are particularly sensitive to climate change and are transforming at accelerated rates. This can have important global repercussions. EERL aims to create integrated process understanding by investigating interactions between the atmosphere, cryosphere, biosphere, ocean, land and anthroposphere. The goal is to characterize climate-change relevant and vertically-resolved processes that are directly influenced by humans, and natural processes that are simultaneously undergoing change due to climate forcing. The enhanced process understanding will enable us to better simulate the fate of extreme environments in the context of global change and resulting implications for society.
Research topics
1
We investigate the molecular-level chemical composition of aerosols with cutting edge instrumentation to determine the sources of the aerosol particles.
2
We study the vertical thermodynamic structure of the atmosphere and how aerosols are dispersed from the surface to higher altitudes where they participate in cloud formation.
3
We develop new analytical methods and facilities for vertical atmospheric measurements, notably a tethered balloon, the EERL helikite.
Our key projects
CLAVIER
We performed vertical observations of aerosols and clouds at Villum Research Station in Northern Greenland to understand how local and remote sources of aerosols impact the local climate.
EU Horizon 2020 project CleanCloud; Aarhus University, DK
GreenFjord
Using the new Swiss research sailboat Forel, we studied the ocean-ice-atmosphere interactions in Southern Greelandic fjords, specifically focusing on the difference between fjords with and without calving glaciers.
ETHZ, UZH, UNIL, Narsaq International Research Station
ORACLES
How are clouds formed in Antarctica? To answer this question we performed tethered balloon observations at Neumayer III station.
Alfred Wegener Institute, Institute for Tropospheric Research, DE
Our results and highlights
1
EERL was the first science team to operate on the Swiss research vessel Forel
2
Two PhD students graduated: Dr. Ivo Beck; Dr. Roman Pohorsky
3
Prof. Julia Schmale is leading the atmospheric science team for Tara Polar Station, a project that will study Arctic sea ice decline over the next 20 years.
4
Prof. Julia Schmale recieved the ‘best professor award’ of the Sustainable Management and Technology Master Program of EPFL, UNIL and IMD.
Team & talents
Lab team size
EERL has currently 17 members.
General skills
EERL members have educational backgrounds in engineering, meteorology, chemistry, physics and environmental science. We seek people that think creatively, love challenges, like to be outdoors in polar regions and care about environment and people.
Skills developed by the scientific team
Our skills comprise building new scientific instruments, developing analyses codes, illustrating our science results and capturing our research with stunning images.
Regional and social impacts
1
Our research helps to improve climate model simulations to better anticipate global challenges of climate change.
2
Our focus on air quality can help identify challenging weather patterns that exacerbate local pollution, particularly in winter when temperature inversions lead to high pollution in the Rhone Valley. In addition, we can quantify the impact on air pollution of Saharan dust events and long-range transported fire emissions.
3
Our routine observations in Valais at ALPOLE can guide operators of solar panels when a lot of dust deposition and hence lower performance is expected.
Perspectives and challenges
Priority 1
Study the decline of Arctic sea ice and the implications for weather in Europe
Priority 2
Understand how fast and when Antarctica will react to climate change
Priority 3
Cultivate a regenerative mind set to tackle sustainability challenges
Future Needs
New instruments that deliver high quality data and are light weight need to be developed long-lived batteries for autonous science stations are required
anti-icing materials that are environmentally friendly are needed.
Industry Partnerships
We seek partnerships with industry and start ups to work on solutions for our three main challenges.
School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Atmospheric Science
Prof. Julia Schmale
Extreme Environments Research Laboratory (EERL)
Ecohydrology, Landscape evolution, Modeling
Prof. Sara Bonetti
Laboratory of Catchment Hydrology and Geomorphology (CHANGE)
Cryospheric Sciences
Prof. Michael Lehning
Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences (CRYOS)
Remote Sensing, Machine learning
Prof. Devis Tuia
Environmental Computational Science and Earth Observation (ECEO)
River science
Prof. Tom Ian Battin
River Ecosystems Laboratory (RIVER)
Environmental Microbiology
Prof. Ianina Altshuler
Microbiome Adaptation to the Changing Environment (MACE)
Soil Biogeochemistry
Prof. Meret Aeppli
Soil Biogeochemistry Laboratory (SOIL)
Biogeochemistry, climate change
Prof. Jérôme Chappellaz
Smart Environmental Sensing in Extreme Environments Laboratory (SENSE)
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