News

Climate at the cliffs: Researchers unravel the evolution of the Greenland ice margin

Vertical ice walls, up to 40 metres high: in "Game of Thrones" they were dramatised as fortifications; during the Cold War, they were studied with great interest. How these imposing walls along Greenland’s 80,000-kilometre-long ice margin formed, how they are evolving, and what impact they have on the climate is not yet fully understood. Researchers from the Universities of Graz and Innsbruck have come one step closer to solving the mystery. The results of their latest study have been published in the journal The Cryosphere.

Achieving climate goals: Researchers highlight need for fair country shares in CO2

As the war in the Middle East is currently reminding us once again, many countries around the world are heavily reliant on oil and gas. Lax climate policy and limited options for removing CO₂ from the atmosphere could cement this dependence for future generations. Scientists at the University of Graz highlight this danger in a new study published in the journal Global Environmental Change. They find that rights to carbon dioxide removal should be distributed across countries just as fairly as emission budgets in order to halt global warming.

Inequalities: why women are more strongly affected by climate security risks

Climate change affects us all. And yet some people are affected by it more than others. “In many societies, women have less access to protection resources . At the same time, they are more often responsible for unpaid care work. That is why they suffer more intensely from the threats posed by a changing global climate,” Atieh Khatibi, the legal scholar at the Research Center for Climate Law (ClimLaw:Graz), University of Graz highlights. She is researching her project on the effects of climate security risks on women’s human rights, particularly in her home country, Iran.

Prevention gets more important: Snow cover in Austria is declining sharply

The snow cover in Austria is shrinking by one centimetre a year, and the volume of glaciers could decrease by 80 per cent by 2050. A recent study shows that these developments are putting the water balance at risk.

UNIZEIT - Gesetze, um die Welt zu schützen

Der Jurist Oliver Ruppel befasst sich in einem seiner Forschungsschwerpunkte mit rechtlichen Herausforderungen, die der Klimawandel weltweit an Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft stellt.

Early Career Researcher Mentorship and Networking Workshop

10 June 2026, 14:00-18:00 SR 67.01 (Elisabethstraße 27/EG) Organized by Alyssa Delarosa, Atieh Khatibi, Larissa Von Römer, and Keith Williges

Sustainable reforestation: Researchers identify key factors for successful restoration

Natural forests are not only valuable for CO₂ storage, but also reservoirs of biodiversity. For this reason, areas that are no longer used for agriculture are being reforested as part of renaturation projects. To ensure successful forest restoration, there are a number of factors to consider. For example, the combination of early- and late-successional tree species plays a role. At the outset, the correct spacing between seedlings is crucial for the survival of young forest plants. Sarah Bürli, head of the Botanical Garden at the University of Graz, has analysed the results of experiments on forest renaturation together with colleagues in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Her findings on beneficial planting strategies were recently published in the science magazine Ecological Solutions and Evidence.

New groundbreaking computation method for climate extremes

How much will heat, flooding, drought and storms increase as a result of human-induced climate change? In a groundbreaking study, climate researcher Gottfried Kirchengast and his team at the University of Graz have developed a new method for computing the hazards from extreme events: it can compute all relevant hazard metrics for events such as heat waves, floods and droughts in any region worldwide with unprecedented information content. Using it for Europe, the researchers found that anthropogenic climate change has caused a tenfold increase in extreme heat in recent decades. The study, published in the journal Weather and Climate Extremes, also provides a basis for better quantifying the damage to people, ecosystems and infrastructure.

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ACRP - 18. Call: Jetzt klimarelevante Forschung für Österreich einreichen

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2. Österreichischer Hitzeaktionstag (“Austrian Heat Action Day”)

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Setback: Austria's greenhouse gas emissions rise in 2025

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Fair distribution: Researchers determine just greenhouse gas budgets for all EU regions

Ten years ago, on 12 December 2015, the Paris Climate Agreement was signed at the UN Climate Conference. In order to limit global warming to well…