Domestic focus Switzerland

How could the Swiss railway system be impacted by avalanches? How does work productivity change during heatwaves in Swiss cities? And how is the Swiss hydropower sector affected by changes in atmospheric dynamics? Such questions become more pertinent with the weather in Switzerland changing, and the onset of climate change becoming noticeable.

The domestic focus of the Weather and Climate Risks group is composed of two mutually reinforcing pillars. On the one hand, we study and forecast expected impacts of natural hazards – including flooding, heatwaves, wind storms, and wildfires – within Switzerland, using the CLIMADA platform. On the other hand, social scientists working in the team are analysing how weather is perceived and managed; how climate knowledge is employed by different expert communities for climate adaptation; what climate information is actually used in national, regional and local decision-making; and how exploring common interests in collaborations with industry can contribute to increased use of climate information for strategic decision making in a company.

By studying not only likely effects of climate change on Switzerland, its people and economy, but also the responses and use of climate science, the Weather and Climate Risks group is uniquely positioned to bring together the ‘supply’ and ‘demand’ side of climate information. Regularly working with key stakeholders in producing relevant climate services and policy solutions, the domestic-focussed research aims to increase Switzerland’s resilience to climate change.

The people working with a domestic focus include:

• Prof. Dr. David N. Bresch
• Dr. Valentin Gebhart
• Timo Schmid
  
• Theresa Ertl (external PhD at WSL)
• Lisa Deutsch (external PhD at Eawag; Integrative Leadership in Inter- and Transdisciplinary Research)
  

Selected past and ongoing research projects:

• Seamless coupling of kilometer-resolution weather predictions and climate simulations with hail impact assessments for multiple sectors (scClim project) (V. Gebhart, T. Schmid)
  
• Stakeholder Dialogue of the external pageSwiss Climate Change Scenarios CH2018call_made, in collaboration with the external pageNational Centre for Climate Services NCCScall_made (M. Skelton)
• Studying actual use of the Swiss Climate Change Scenarios CH2011, in collaboration with external pageMeteoSwisscall_made (M. Skelton)
• Case study on how Swiss cities and the sectors' greenspace management, building technology, spatial planning and health are adapting to heatwaves (M. Skelton)
• International climate risks of Switzerland (D. Bresch)
• Towards impact-based warnings of wind storms in Switzerland (T. Röösli)
• Risk assessment of winter storms in Switzerland, with external pageGVZcall_made (T. Röösli)
• Resilience of Switzerland’s electricity generation energy to different weather regimes and climate change, with industry partner and ETH’s Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science (L. Fischer)
• Assessing the risk of avalanches and other mass movements to Switzerland’s mobility sector, with industry partner (G. Ortner)
• Analysing social and institutional barriers on integrated approaches to cope with impacts of climate change in Swiss alpine regions (T. Ertl)