Yesterday, was the first day in the field after winter break. It was good to get out of the city, drive trough the country side and spend a couple hours outside and far away from my home office.

I stopped at Flåm and it was strange to see the place so empty. Usually this place is swamped with people and cruise ships at this time of the year. Sadly, Flåm and Aurland are the places with the highest unemployment rate in the country. Hopefully, things are getting back to normal soon.

It is very cold at the moment and summer is far away. There is a lot of snow in the mountains that still has to melt. Who know when the field season in the mountains will start.

The turfs I transplanted last summer look happy. The Tomst loggers that measure the microclimate do not. They have all lost their „hats“ (protection from direct sunlight). Probably the snow, but maybe also deer that found something to play with.

The next step will be to get a fence around the plots, to protect them from the goats.

I was supposed to go to a conference next week; the EGU in Vienna. But I am not going to the conference now, as almost no travelling, meetings and going to work is happening at the moment. The conference is still happening, but everything is going to be online.
I made a poster to present the ClimEx Handbook and hope for fruitful discussions during our sessions. Come and visit our session:

BG2.23 Whole system approaches in addressing processes and long-term changes in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems

Windy is a great resource providing global weather forecast. And beautiful maps on wind, precipitation, temperature, clouds, waves and much more.

I was the on the radio @stadtfilter yesterday talking about my work, #RaspberryPi’s, traits and climate change. The interview is in Swiss German and you can listen to it here.

Download this resource from the University of Arizona.

On this website, #showyourstripes you can create an image with the warming stripes of your country. Here are the stripes for Switzerland from 1864 – 2018.

This week, I was in the field to train two students and find potential new field sites. The training was successfully done in decent weather, a mix of sun and clouds. But when we started to walk up the mountain, the snow came. It was snowing and hailing and raining, all in one.

We found a beautiful summer farm, where I will have one of my field sites. It even has a letter box, where hikers can write their names when walking up the mountain.

I’ll have to come back to select the sites properly, set up plots. And then I will spend a lot of time staring at the plants. Looking forward to this!