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Hans Oeschger (2 April 1927,Ottenbach – 25 December 1998,Bern) was a Swissclimatologist. He founded the Division of Climate and Environmental Physics at the Physics Institute of theUniversity of Bern in 1963 and served as its director until his retirement in 1992.
Oeschger was the first to date the "age" of Pacific deep water. TheOeschger counter, developed by his team, was a leading instrument for measuring the activity of naturally occurring radioisotopes (3
H,14
C,26
Al,37
Ar,39
Ar,81
Kr,85
Kr).
He was a pioneer in ice core research, and in collaboration with his colleagues, he was the first to measure the glacial-interglacial changes in atmospheric CO2. Their 1979 study demonstrated that atmospheric CO2 levels during the glacial period were nearly 50% lower than today.
Along withChester C. Langway andWilli Dansgaard, Oeschger documented a series ofabrupt climate changes in theGreenlandice cores, now known asDansgaard–Oeschger events.
Oeschger expressed concerns about the potential increase in thegreenhouse effect due to rising CO2 levels. He said: “The worst for me would be, if there were serious changes in the next 5 to 10 years and we scientists are helpless and did not have the courage to point at these dangerous developments early.”[1]
He was a lead author of the First Assessment Report of theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
TheEuropean Geophysical Society established theHans Oeschger Medal in his honour in 2001.[2]
The centre of excellence for climate research at theUniversity of Bern (Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research), which was founded in 2007, is named after Hans Oeschger,[3] as isOeschger Bluff, a cliff in Antarctica.[4]
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