The 19th International Swiss Climate Summer School focuses on the theme «Vegetation, Land Surface and Climate Interactions».
The purpose of this summer school is to bring early stage researchers in touch with established scientists from different disciplines to address the question how vegetation and the land surface are affected and altered due to climate change, and how the resulting changes feed back to the atmosphere and hydrological processes in the climate system. The carbon cycle, which directly affects the global greenhouse gas budget, and the hydrological cycle, which is strongly influenced by plant transpiration, are the key relations between vegetation and climate that will be addressed from multiple perspectives during the summer school. The main questions to be addressed in the keynote lectures and discussed in smaller groups within the planned workshops are:
- How do forests and other ecosystems interact with climate and climate change,
and on which temporal and spatial scales?
- How does water vapor in the atmosphere – the strongest greenhouse
gas – depend on vegetation distribution and activity, and how does it
relate to anthropogenic emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases?
- How can we measure CO2 and greenhouse gas fluxes and their driving
climate variables to inform and improve computer models?
- What mitigation options exist to alleviate climate change effects via land use
management?
- How exactly are soil and vegetation–atmosphere interactions represented in
climate models, and what research needs exist to increase model prediction skills?
This summer school addresses early stage researchers from the climate, agriculture, and forest ecosystems sciences. In addition to keynote lectures from internationally renowned experts and extensive time for discussions and poster sessions, two half days will be scheduled for parallel workshops. All Summer School participants are expected to present a poster of their research to discuss their own research with the other participants.
Note that we provide a few grants covering the expenses for the registration fee (1300 CHF) for attendees from newly industrialising and developing countries. Travel and other costs are not reimbursed. When registering, please indicate that you apply for a grant in the comment field.
Find more information here.
Application deadline: 28 February 2021
