Climate Change

The last ice age, about 20,000 years ago, was significantly colder than previously thought. This is shown for the first time by systematically analysed samples of groundwater collected around the globe and the inert gases dissolved in it. Swiss groundwater from Uster (ZH) also contributed to the results.

In the Alps, it is getting warmer and warmer and spring is starting earlier and earlier. Many species living there can adapt their behaviour as well as their choice of habitat accordingly. But as it is shown in an overview study led by the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) and the CNRS in France, which also includes numerous results from citizen science projects, these adaptations usually do not take place quickly enough.

EPFL scientists are beginning to understand why corals in the Gulf of Aqaba, along with their symbiotic algae and bacteria, resist higher temperatures particularly well.

An international research team including scientists from ETH Zurich has shown that almost all the world’s glaciers are becoming thinner and losing mass’ and that these changes are picking up pace. The team’s analysis is the most comprehensive and accurate of its kind to date.

EPFL scientists have found that streams and rivers – or “running waters” – emit on average four times more CO₂ at night than during the day. That matters because most estimates of global CO₂ emissions are made using measurements taken during the day, thereby introducing a potential bias into the calculation of the global carbon cycle.