Research
ACINN is devoted to basic research in the areas of weather forecasting, mountain meteorology, earth atmosphere interactions and ice-climate relations. Our research activity is largely supported by third-party funding.
Studies
We offer a full degree programme in Atmospheric Sciences, from Bachelor to Master and PhD. Our teaching covers all the core subjects of the dynamics, physics, chemistry of the atmosphere-cryosphere-climate system and includes prerequisites from mathematics, statistics, physics and earth sciences.
People
Meet our research group leaders, scientists, professors and general staff.
Graduate Seminar
Time and location of the graduate seminar, a list of speakers, abstracts etc.
Publications
All our publications.
Theses
Bachelor's Theses, Master's Theses, Diploma Theses and PhD Theses
Open Research Data
Links to our Open Research Data
Collaboration
Networks and partners
About Us
The Department of Atmospheric and Cryospheric Sciences (ACINN) is one of the few university departments worldwide where research and education in atmospheric science and glaciology are co-located. It is located in the heart of the Alps. Therefore, ACINN's research and teaching focus on mountain weather and forecasting, mountain climate, earth-atmosphere interaction – with an emphasis on snow- or ice-covered surfaces, exchange of gases, aerosols and other atmospheric properties over complex topography – and ice-climate relations. ACINN is embedded in the university's research areas Mountain Regions and Scientific Computing. It plays a key role in the research centre Climate - Cryosphere and Atmosphere.
Contact
Department of Atmospheric and Cryospheric Sciences
University of Innsbruck
Innrain 52f
6020 Innsbruck
Austria
News and Events
- Master Defensio: Almut Dorothee Alexa
Title: "Atmospheric boundary layer structure at the head of a small Alpine tributary valley with uncrewed aerial systems (UAS)". Date/time: 20th of December 2023, 08:30 a.m., on-line and on-site ; Seminar room 60819, Bruno-Sander-Haus, 8th floor, Innrain 52f
- Graduate Seminar: Lindsey Nicholson, Rainer Prinz, Ivana Stiperski
Title: "Introducing the HEFEX II campaign". This presentation will take place on-line and on-site. Date/time: 13th of December 2023, 12:00 noon, seminar room 60819, 8th floor of Bruno-Sander-Haus
- New paper published in Geoscientific Model Development
Bolibar, J., Sapienza, F., Maussion, F., Lguensat, R., Wouters, B., and Pérez, F.: Universal differential equations for glacier ice flow modelling, Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 6671–6687, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-6671-2023, 2023.
- New publication by Gaspard Simonet et al.
The paper led by Gaspard Simonet evaluates the performance of two mesoscale models, GRAMM-SCI and WRF, in simulating the surface-energy budget in the Inn Valley. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-023-00835-9
- Graduate Seminar: Arianna Peron (ACINN)
"VOCs in urban context"; Date/time: November 29, 2023, 12:00 noon; on-line and on site; location: Bruno-Sander-Haus, 8th floor, seminar room 60819
- Graduate Seminar: Georg Mayr (ACINN)
"When the Romans came marching in - reconstructing climate at their strategic camp on Septimer Pass during the Alpine campaign 15 BCE - 15 CE"
Date/time: November 22, 2023, 12:00 noon; on-line and on site; location: Bruno-Sander-Haus, 8th floor, seminar room 60819 - Graduate Seminar: Simona Bordoni (University of Trento)
Title: "Aquaplanet monsoons: Dynamics and energetics of their maintenance and their response to climate changes". This presentation will take place on-line, and on-site in the seminar room 60819 SR, Bruno-Sander-Haus 8th floor; date/time: 15th of November 2023, 12:00 noon
- Master Defensio: Marie Schroeder
Title: Snow Water Equivalent measured by a Cosmic Ray Neutron Sensor: A Case Study on Hintereisferner (Austria). Date/time: 16th of November 2023, 2 p.m., on-line and on-site ; seminar room 60819, Bruno-Sander-Haus, 8th floor, Innrain 52f
- PhD Defensio: Deborah Morgenstern
Title: "European lightning conditions in all seasons explained by thunderstorm environments" ; date/time: 17th of November 2023, 3 p.m., seminar room 60819, Bruno-Sander-Haus, and on-line
- Graduate Seminar: Andreas Platis and Jens Bange (University of Tübingen)
Title: Use of small uncrewed aircraft systems for lower-troposphere research. Date/time 8th of November 2023, 12.00 noon. Location: Seminar room 60819, 8th floor of Bruno-Sander-Haus, and on-line
- Master Defensio: Dominik Majer
Title: "May the snow be with you: forecasting heavy snowfall in the Northern Tatra Mountains". Date/time: 20th of October 2023, 10:00 a.m., on-line and on-site ; Seminar room 60819, Bruno-Sander-Haus, 8th floor, Innrain 52f
- Graduate Seminar: Gaspard Simonet (ACINN)
Title: "Mesoscale model evaluation techniques over complex terrain". Date/time: 18th of October 2023, 12:00 noon; seminar room 60819 SR, 8th floor, Bruno-Sander-Haus, Innrain 52f and on-line (write to atmosphaere@uibk.ac.at if you want to join on-line)
- Graduate Seminar: Bart Schilperoort (eScience Center, NL)
Title: "Distributed temperature sensing and its applications in studying forest-atmosphere interaction". This presentation will take place on-line and on-site. Date/time: 11th of October 2023, 12:00 noon
- Master Defensio: Judith Schmack
Title: "Seasonality of atmospheric new particle formation at Sonnblick Observatory: An analysis of the years 2019-2021". Date/time: 9th of October 2023, 5 p.m., on-line and on-site ; Conputer room 60818, Bruno-Sander-Haus, 8th floor, Innrain 52f
- Master Defensio: Raphael Tasch
Title: "Do thunderstorm environments actually produce thunderstorms?". Date/time: 6th of October 2023, 12:00 noon, on-line and on-site ; Seminar room 60819, Bruno-Sander-Haus, 8th floor, Innrain 52f
- Minor in Scientific computing
The Extension Programme Scientific Computing (EPSC) allows students to profoundly expand their knowledge in various aspects of scientific computing. Graduates of the bachelor's and master's programme in atmospheric sciences are admitted to this extension programme.
- New paper published in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society
Weinkaemmerer, J., Göbel, M., Serafin, S., Ďurán, I.B. & Schmidli, J. (2023) Boundary-layer plumes over mountainous terrain in idealized large-eddy simulations. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 1–15. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.4551
- Graduate Seminar: Pascal Buri (Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL)
Title: "On the importance of vapor fluxes for the water balance of a high elevation Himalayan catchment". This presentation will take place on-line and on-site. Date/time: 17th of May 2023, 12:00 noon; location: room 60819 SR, Bruno-Sander-Haus, 8th floor
- Graduate Seminar: Werner Jud (ACINN)
Title: "Atmospheric trace gases and me". This presentation will take place on-line and on-site. Date/Time: 10th of May 2023, 12:00 noon
- Graduate Seminar: Hamish McGowan
Title: "Subtropical foehn winds, Southeast Queensland, Australia (Early insights)". This presentation will take place on-line and on-site. Date/time: 3rd of May 2023, 12:00 noon; location: room 60819 SR, Bruno-Sander-Haus, 8th floor
- Master Defensio: Michael Binder
Title: "Non-Orographic Gravity Waves above Propagating Tropopause Depressions - Idealized Numerical Simulations.". Date/Time: 3rd of May 2023, 2 p.m., on-line and on-site ; computer room 60818, Bruno-Sander-Haus, 8th floor, Innrain 52f
- Graduate Seminar: Georg Kaser (ACINN)
Title: "IPCC AR6". This presentation will take place on-line and on-site. Date/time 26th of April 2023, 12:30 p.m.
- New paper from the OGGM team in the Journal of Glaciology
Authors: Malles, J., Maussion, F., Ultee, L., Kochtitzky, W., Copland, L. and Marzeion, B.; title: "Exploring the impact of a frontal ablation parameterization on projected 21st-century mass change for Northern Hemisphere glaciers", J. Glaciol., 1–16, doi:10.1017/jog.2023.19, 2023.;
- Graduate Seminar: Fabien Maussion, Cornelia Klein, Emily Potter (ACINN), Lorenz Hänchen, and Georg Wohlfahrt (Department of Ecology)
Title: "4 years of AgroClim Huaraz - Symposium and celebration for the end of the project". This presentation will take place on-line and on-site. Date/time: 19th of April 2023, 11:30 a.m.
- Turbulence: Decades-old theory gets a major remake
News about the Atmospheric Turbulence group in the University of Innsbruck's Newsroom
- New paper published in Annals of Glaciology
A new paper is published by Recinos, B., Maussion, F. and Marzeion, B.: "Advances in data availability to constrain and evaluate frontal ablation of ice-dynamical models of Greenland’s tidewater peripheral glaciers", Annals of Glaciology 1-7.
- New paper published in Physical Review Letters
Authors: Ivana Stiperski and Marc Calaf, title: "Generalizing Monin-Obukhov Similarity Theory (1954) for Complex Atmospheric Turbulence";
- Emily Collier, Lindsey Nicholson, and international collaborators were successfully awarded an FWF grant
to investigate the impact of tropical cyclones on glaciers and precipitation extremes in Equatorial East Africa.
Congratulations! - Master Defensio: Anna Castiglione
Title: "From global warming to extreme precipitation: an attribution study of the Vaia storm (2018) to raise climate change risk-perception in the Trentino population". Date/Time: 30th of March 2023, 10:30 a.m., on-line and on-site ; computer room 60818, Bruno-Sander-Haus, 8th floor, Innrain 52f
- Master Defensio: Lennart Königer
Title: "Case study of large snowfall event on the Tibetan Plateau associated with tropical cyclone activity". Date/Time: 24th of March 2023, 10:00 a.m., on-site; seminar room 60819, Bruno-Sander-Haus, 8th floor, Innrain 52f
- New paper in Frontiers in Earth Science
by Nickus U., Thies H., Krainer K., Lang K., Mair V. and Tonidandel D. about the chemical composition of a rock glacier ice core (Lazaun, Italy): https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2023.1141379/full
- Graduate Seminar: Stefan Kneifel (LMU, Germany)
Title: "Long-term remote-sensing observations of clouds and precipitation at the Environmental Research Station Schneefernerhaus". This presentation will take place on-line and on-site. Date/Time: 15th of March 2023, 12:00 noon
- 9th Meeting of the Austrian Meteorological Society
11th – 12th of May 2023
- Publication in "Science" (Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry group),18.01.2023
"High urban NOx triggers a substantial chemical downward flux of ozone"
- Publication in "Science" (Ice and Climate group), 05.01.2023
"Global glacier change in the 21st century: Every increase in temperature matters" DOI: 10.1126/science.abo1324
- New paper in Journal of Glaciology
"What is the global glacier ice volume outside the ice sheets?" Journal of Glaciology, first view, pp. 1-7 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2023.1
- PhD Concept Defensio: Patrick Schmitt
Title: "Towards a flexible, global data assimilation framework for glacier modelling" Date/Time: 14th of February 2023, 4 p.m., seminar room 60819, Bruno-Sander-Haus
- Master Defensio: Dabih Isidori
Title: "Atmospheric Deserts and Severe Convection Over Europe: 7 Case Studies" Date/Time: 27.02.2023, 2 p.m., on-site and on-line; room 60819, Bruno-Sander-Haus, 8th floor, Innrain 52f
- PhD Concept Defensio: Michael Stichaner
Title: "QUANTIFICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF URBAN METHANE SOURCES MEASURED BY EDDY COVARIANCE" Date/Time: 8th of March 2023, 10 a.m., on-line and on-site: computer room 60818, Bruno-Sander-Haus
- Graduate Seminar: Samuele Mosso (ACINN)
Title: "Turbulence Anisotropy in the Atmospheric Surface Layer". The seminar takes place on-line and on-site. Date/time: 31st of January 2024, 12:00 noon, seminar room 60819, 8th floor of Bruno-Sander-Haus
- Graduate Seminar: Lilian Schuster (ACINN)
Title: "Consequences of overshooting the Paris temperature targets for global glacier volume and runoff projections". Date/time: 17th of January 2024, 12:00 noon; seminar room 60819 SR, 8th floor, Bruno-Sander-Haus, Innrain 52f and on-line (write to atmosphaere@uibk.ac.at if you want to join on-line)
- Graduate Seminar: Matthias Mauder (Institute of Hydrology and Meteorology, University of Dresden)
Title: "The Energy-Balance-Closure Problem and Possible Corrections". The seminar takes place on-line and on-site. Date/time: 24th of January 2024, 12:00 noon, seminar room 60819, 8th floor of Bruno-Sander-Haus
- Graduate Seminar: Josef Aschbacher
Title: "Austria and ESA". This presentation will take place on-line. Date/time: 29th of March 2023, 11:45 a.m. on-line only
- Graduate Seminar: Charles Chemel (National Centre for Atmospheric Science, Leeds, UK)
Title: "Evaluation of heatwave mitigation and adaptation strategies in the Grenoble valley". Date/time: 20th of March 2024, 12:00 noon; seminar room 60819 SR, 8th floor, Bruno-Sander-Haus, Innrain 52f and on-line (write to atmosphaere@uibk.ac.at if you want to join on-line)
- New publication in "Nature" with high-resolution multi-model ensamble co-authored by Nikolina Ban
Fosser, G., Gaetani, M., Kendon, E.J. et al. Convection-permitting climate models offer more certain extreme rainfall projections. npj Clim Atmos Sci 7, 51 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-024-00600-w