The Institute of Geosciences - Our institute

From mid of February to mid of March 2024 a team of the Bonn geophysics group conducts geophysical measurements on Svalbard in collaboration with project partners from the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) and Forschungszentrum Jülich. The team images the subsurface using different geophysical methods to improve understanding of groundwater flow paths leading to surface icings in glacier forefields as well as at coastal pingo sites where methane outgassing occurs.

The international conference on ‘Precipitation Processes - Estimation and Prediction (PrePEP)’ to be held 17-21 March 2025 in Bonn, Germany, will bring together scientists contributing with new approaches to improve the monitoring, understanding, nowcasting and prediction of precipitation processes. This includes advancements in integrated multi-sensor observations, their exploitation for parameterization developments, classical or AI-based Nowcasting techniques, microphysical retrieval development, data assimilation, the blending with numerical weather prediction, hydrological flood forecasts and warning strategies. Please visit the conference website https://indico.scc.kit.edu/event/prepep/ for more information. Looking forward to seeing you in Bonn!

On January 27th, we participated with two stations in the science rally around Poppelsdorf. Under bright sunshine, over 300 students visited various scientific stations. At our stations, the  students had the opportunity to learn the differences between weather and climate. In addition to explanations about the topics and measurement methods, they could illustrate their learning  through experiments.

A wavy air mass boundary caused significant snowfall in Bonn and its surroundings this Wednesday. The air mass boundary moved very slowly, allowing precipitation to fall in the same location over an extended period. At the same time, there was a risk of freezing rain due to the weather conditions in southern Germany. The wintry weather will persist in our region until the weekend. The last time we experienced such large amounts of snow in our region was in December 2010.

Last week, we launched our Erasmus+ cooperation project in Bonn and Cologne, which aims to present scientific findings on climate change in a way that is suitable for children. In this international project, we coordinate eight partner institutions from six European countries, including kindergartens, technical schools and youth centers from Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Italy, Poland and Spain. Our aim is to encourage even the youngest children to take a scientifically sound and sustainable approach to climate and climate change.

Curious about studying meteorology in Bonn?
In the following video clip students, researchers and teachers of the subject meteorology of the University of Bonn report.

Our colleague, Vert.-Prof. Dr. Lisa Schielicke has been awarded the Teaching Award of the Faculty 2022.
Ms. Schielicke represents courses in both the compulsory and elective areas of the bachelor's and master's programs of the teaching unit Meteorology and Geophysics. She covers introductory basic knowledge as well as special and in-depth topics of meteorological research. Her lectures are well received and highly praised by the students. By supervising theses in the field of atmospheric dynamics, Ms. Schielicke offers students additional research-related topics to choose from, which are gladly taken up. In addition, Ms. Schielicke is exceedingly involved in public relations for the Section of Meteorology and the course offerings.
We are very pleased and congratulate her!

As part of the Christmas lecture on the module "Applied Geophysics", students were able to geophysically confirm the existence of a suspected marzipan core.