CLIMATE CHANGE AT OUR DOORSTEP

How our lives are already changing

THE REKLIM ANNIVERSARY MAGAZINE reports, in stories and images, on the research network’s findings and broad range of focus areas. In addition, it
demonstrates how the research community can and is working in dialogue with society in order to address the most pressing questions of our time. Check it out!

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A free print version can be requested at info@reklim.de .

Drought

Using stardust to measure soil moisture

Since the summer of 2018 at the latest, one thing is clear: Germany, too, can be hit by droughts. Using cosmic rays and other creative methods, Leipzig-based experts are now investigating a climate phenomenon largely unexplored in our country. Read more ...

Environmental data

TERENO observatories are setting new standards

How is climate change affecting Germany’s meadows, forests and lakes? To help answer that question, ten years ago the Helmholtz Association established high-tech observatories in four key regions. Dubbed TERENO, this monitoring network has since become a role model for modern environmental research around the globe. REKLIM experts have actively supported the lighthouse project, and had successes at several levels to report this year, which marks TERENO’s ten-year anniversary. Read more ...

Soiles in climate change

How much humus will meadow soils hold in the future?

In the future, Bavaria’s climate could become warmer and drier. Experts fear that, as a result, the soils of meadows could lose fertile humus. To better gauge the impacts, researchers are trying to get one step ahead of climate change: they are transplanting soil from the cool and moist mountain regions into the warmer lands below – and observing the resultant changes. In this context, researchers and farmers are working hand in hand. Read more ...

Science communication

Climate expertise for journalism students

With seaiceportal.de, REKLIM offers Germany’s most prominent infoportal on sea ice. Researchers prepare and distribute the contents for social media channels together with students from the Freie Universität Berlin. Every semester, new future journalists face the challenge of conveying climate-related information correctly, clearly and in an entertaining way: a practical seminar with farreaching benefits! Read more ...

Storms

Historical records disprove our subjective sense of change

With the help of 100-year-old weather data, storm and climate researchers in Hamburg are trying to determine whether there are now more windstorms over Germany than in the past. Their findings contradict the commonly held perception: in fact, storms haven’t become more frequent! Read more ...  

Permafrost

How much methane is being released from Arctic soils?

How much methane is being emitted by Arctic permafrost and restored peatlands in northern Germany? Katrin Kohnert and her colleagues at the German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam (GFZ) take to the skies to learn more about this essential climate-relevant gas. Read more ...

Education

#klimafit – an idea comes of age

Without knowledge, there can be no climate protection: in keeping with this simple logic, REKLIM and its partners launched an unprecedented project. In ‘crash courses’, they train interested citizens to become climate multipliers - at their local community college, and using a teaching plan that is precisely tailored to the participants’ home region. A project that began with small steps but is rapidly gaining momentum, as this timeline shows. Read more ...

Floods

How communities can prepare themeselves

Due to climate change, in the future sudden floods produced by heavy rainfall could occur more frequently in Germany. For example, the town of Grimma, Saxony was hit by flooding twice in the span of eleven years. In response, flood protectionmeasures are now being massively expanded in Saxony - with the support of risk analyses and social scientific studies prepared by experts from the REKLIM network.  Read more ...

Air pollution

The pollutants' journey

Nitrogen oxides and other pollutants that are released into the air by automobiles or power plants can lead to illness and have a significant influence on our climate. This is why there are now various efforts across the country to more accurately measure their total concentrations. However, that is no mean feat. By means of a complex computer model, the experts from the Forschungszentrum Jülich are helping government authorities measure current pollution burden. Read more ...

Sea-level rise

Greenland's ice masses on the scale

The Greenland Ice Sheet is more than four times the size of Germany, up to 3,100 metres thick and stores enough water to raise the sea level by seven metres. Accordingly, the more ice that the colossus loses, the more the risk of rising waters in coastal communities increases. But how do you measure the weight of an entire ice sheet? The answer: with a spaceborne scale. Read more ...

Awareness

Climate change – a matter of perspective

What people think about climate change and how they relate to it depends largely on where they live. Social scientists from REKLIM have asked people in a variety of places how urgent they personally consider the climate problem to be. Responses varied considerably. Read more ...

Abrupt climate change

Interview: looking for triggers

History teaches us: the Earth’s climate can suddenly ‘tip’, causing it to grow far cooler or far warmer in just a short time. The REKLIM climate experts Achim Brauer and Ralf Tiedemann are currently investigating the likelihood of an abrupt climate change, and what set off such changes in the past. A discussion about new findings that cast an uncertain light on our future. Read more ...

Hagel

A risk factor that can finally be quantified

Severe hailstorms frequently cause enormous amounts of damage in Germany. But where, when and why hail falls from the sky still remain poorly understood aspects. Accordingly, stakeholders like insurers want to be better informed about hail-related risks. REKLIM researchers in Karlsruhe have now estimated the hail risk from different datasets and investigated how the likelihood of hailstorms is being affected by climate change. Read more ...

Further reading

Facts, figures, and food for thought – information products from REKLIM

Expand your climate know-how with the best information products from REKLIM and its partners. All are available free of charge! Read more ...

Teleconnections

How Arctic sea ice influences our weather

Berlin is closer to the Arctic Circle than it is to Barcelona. As such, it’s hardly surprising that the Arctic significantly influences the climate in Central Europe. REKLIM researchers have now shown how the retreating Arctic sea ice is changing the weather in Germany. Read more ...

To the point

What does modern climate research have to deliver, Klaus Grosfeld?

Given record high temperatures and extreme weather events, today climate research is more important than ever. Accordingly, REKLIM Managing Director Klaus Grosfeld feels that the scientific community bears a special responsibility, and is confident the network is well suited to living up to that responsibility. Read more ...