What a fantastic day! On 17 March 2025, members of the ICOS Switzerland consortium visited the ICOS Class 1 Station Jungfraujoch. For some, it was the first time to visit the Atmosphere station at 3572 m a.s.l, the highest station of the whole ICOS network! The timing of the tour was well planned by HFSJG and included the visit of the research station and the sphinx, lunch and the touristic places.
With sunny weather and incredible views all day, we gained insight into ongoing research and measurements performed at Jungfraujoch. Especially during the warm welcome by the custodians Sonja Stöckli and Thomas Furter for coffee and tea in the old library, we could feel the centuries of research that went on in this station built in 1931. On the following tour guided by the custodians and Prof. Eliza Harris (ICOS PI at University of Bern and new director of the station), we saw how researchers work at this extreme place today.
After lunch, we continued to the Sphinx Laboratories, where experiments were explained to us by Martin Steinbacher (researcher for ICOS at Empa), Monika Hager (responsible for the ICOS flask sampler, University of Bern) and Thomas Furter. Greenhouse gases are continously rising and we learned that air temperature has already increased by 2.1 °C between the pre-industrial period 1871–1900 and now (1994–2023) at Jungfraujoch.
Leaving the part only accessible to researchers, we then continued to the touristic part of Jungfraujoch including the Ice Palace and the Plateau. After a long and impressive day together, we already made plans that our next trip should go to the ICOS Class 1 Ecosystem station Davos. It will be the Ecosystem community’s turn to explain their measurements! We are already looking forward to it.
Picture credit: Tanja Stutz and Susanne Burri
