Creating daily analyses of surface air temperature globally
The University of Bern is internationally renowned in climate research, with 40 professors specialising in this subject. About 35 PhD theses on climate change are submitted each year. Within the University of Bern, research as well as study programs related to climate are coordinated through The Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research. The Centre coordinates research and study programmes on climate change and carries out interdisciplinary research. University of Bern also hosts the IPCC Working Group 1 Technical Support Unit.
The University of Bern’s focus in climate science is on past climate (including modelling), climate impacts, and human dimensions. Past climate observations is also the focus of the Climatology Research Group at the Institute of Geography of the University of Bern (the group is also a member of the Oeschger Centre). They have been active for many years in the area of global historical data products. The group has worked with historical upper-air data as well as meteorological surface data and ozone observations. The group was involved in the ERA-CLIM and the ongoing successor project ERA-CLIM2. The group is participating in the “Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project”, and is involved in international efforts such as ACRE (Atmospheric Circulation Reconstruction Initiative over the Earth), the EarthTemp Network and the International Surface Temperature Initiative (ISTI).
Within EUSTACE, the University of Bern contributed towards WP1, in particular the assessment of homogenisation methods using benchmarks and the comparison of alternative homogenisation approaches to be used in EUSTACE with more advanced methods. Furthermore, they contributed to the break point detection and correction of daily air temperature data over land for Europe, and the estimation of related uncertainties.