Scientific Highlights

in the Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry (LUC)

Datum
Margit Schwikowski i

"We can now look at climate change regionally"

Energy and Climate Environment

Margit Schwikowski is head of the Laboratory for Environmental Chemistry at PSI. In an interview, she explains what aerosols have to do with climate change.

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Teaser Ice Memory

‘Ice Memory Mission’ accomplished

Energy and Climate Environment

During its expedition to the Monte Rosa massif, the international Ice Memory team extracted two ice cores over 80 meters long from Colle Gnifetti, the oldest ice in the Alps.

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Teaser Monte Rosa

The glacial memory of the Monte Rosa

Energy and Climate Environment

The next mission to preserve the climate heritage of the Pennine Alps has begun: For the Ice Memory Project, researchers set off for Monte Rosa’s Colle Gnifetti.

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Expeditionsleiterin Margit Schwikowski mit einem Eisbohrkern

"We were shocked how far advanced the melting is already"

Energy and Climate

An international expedition with the participation of the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI discovers advanced glacial melting at an elevation of more than 4,000 metres on the Grand Combin in Valais. In the Alps, it may almost be too late for the Ice Memory project, which aims to save ice cores as a climate archive for future generations of researchers.

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teaser picture

Why the Little Ice Age ended in the middle of the 19th century

Media Releases Energy and Climate Environment

In the first half of the 19th century, a series of large volcanic eruptions in the tropics led to a temporary global cooling of Earth's climate. That Alpine glaciers grew and subsequently receded again during the final phase of the so-called Little Ice Age was due to a natural process. This has now been proven by PSI researchers on the basis of ice cores.

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This is a text from the PSI media archive. The contents may be out-of-date.
In the experimental chamber, a very thin vertical jet of water can be seen, which flows downward in the middle of the picture from a small tube. During the experiment, the chamber contains a gas mixture including ozone, which reacts on the surface with bromide in the water and produces bromine. As an intermediate step in the process, a short-lived compound of bromide and ozone is made, which was detected for the first time ever with the help of X-ray light from SLS. For this proof, the X-ray light knocked …

Light from the particle accelerator helps to understand ozone decomposition

PSI researchers have developed an experimental chamber in which they can recreate atmospheric processes and probe them with unprecedented precision, using X-ray light from the Swiss Light Source SLS. In the initial experiments, they have studied the production of bromine, which plays an essential role in the decomposition of ozone in the lower layers of the atmosphere. In the future, the new experiment chamber will also be available for use by researchers from other scientific fields.

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