Atmospheric and Climate Science

Overview

We look for you, fascinated by weather phenomena and aiming to understand the atmosphere and climate system. You want to move from reading newspaper articles on climate change and looking at fascinating pictures of tornadoes and hurricanes to investigating and understanding them to become an expert.

You would like to gain a quantitative understanding of climate processes and their interactions – ranging from the molecular to the global scale and from short-lived phenomena to changes over millions of years, and you are interested in the broader view of how climate change links to society and policy. You have a Bachelor’s degree in science and a solid scientific background in mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology.

You will be part of an international group of students with diverse backgrounds but sharing a common passion for atmospheric and climate science.

You will gain a quantitative understanding of atmospheric dynamics, climate processes and feedbacks, biogeochemical cycles, paleoclimatology. You will receive in-depth training in numerical modelling of weather and climate, have the opportunity to work on in the atmospheric chemistry and physics lab, participate in field courses and discuss the current weather in a weekly weather discussion.

Your career

We educate outstanding young scientists for careers in academia, public administration and the private sector. The range of positions of our graduates is very diverse, and ranges from experts in the emerging field of renewable energy, to risk modeling in the insurance business, to scientists. Graduates of our MSc in Atmospheric and Climate Science program at ETH Zurich - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology hold leading positions in companies such as energy providers, climate and weather services, in the reinsurance and financial sector, or in media, business and policy consulting.

Others work as statisticians, programmers, consultants, project managers or teachers in a wide variety of positions in the private sector, public administration and academia. Finally, many of our graduates successfully pursue an academic career and rank among the world-leading scientists in atmospheric and climate science.