CLIMATE FOUNTAIN

The fountain not only displays historical climate data, but also ground movements measured by a seismic sensor (seismometer).

The climate data shown in the fountain comes from various sources: atmospheric CO₂ concentrations from the Mauna Loa Observatory, temperature data from Berkeley Earth, and water vapour content in the atmosphere from the HadISDH observational dataset. The exact references can be found below.

The water feature with live data from the Zurichberg earthquake station can also be experienced at the Aquaretum in Lake Zurich near Mythenquai. The fountain in focusTerra takes up the concept from the Aquaretum and develops it further.

SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We would like to express our sincere thanks to:

Dr. Bianca Biess from the research group Land-Climate Dynamics at the Department Environmental Systems Science at ETH Zurich for the compilation of the data and providing scientific advice.
Metallatelier GmbH for the installation of the fountain and incorporating the climate data.

REFERENCES

CO₂ concentration (ppm)

Observational data since March 1958 (observational data from the Mauna Loa Observatory):

Source: NOAA (2025): Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2). Global Monitoring Laboratory. Lan, X. and Keeling, R.[online]. https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/data.html. [accessed 2015-03-04]. [accessed 2015-03-04]
Data download: https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/data.html

Note:
Aufgrund des Ausbruchs des Vulkans Mauna Loa wurden die Messungen des Mauna Loa Observatoriums am 29. November 2022 ausgesetzt und im Juli 2023 wieder aufgenommen. Die Beobachtungen von Dezember 2022 bis zum 4. Juli 2023 stammen von einem Standort in den Maunakea Observatorien, etwa 21 Meilen nördlich des Mauna Loa Observatoriums.

Mean temperature

Observational data from the dataset ‘The Berkeley Earth Land/Ocean Temperature’

Source: Rohde, R. A. and Hausfather, Z. (2020). The Berkeley Earth Land/Ocean Temperature Record, Earth System Science Data, 12, 3469–3479, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-3469-2020
Data download: https://berkeleyearth.org/data/

Specific humidity (water vapor content)

Observational data from the dataset ‘HadISDH (Global near-surface humidity data)’

Source:

land:
* Willett, K. M., Dunn, R. J. H., Thorne, P. W., Bell, S., de Podesta, M., Parker, D. E., Jones, P. D., Williams Jr., C. N. (2014). HadISDH land surface multi-variable humidity and temperature record for climate monitoring. Climate of the Past, 10, 1983-2006, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-10-1983-2014
* Smith, A., Lott, N., Vose, R. (2011). The Integrated Surface Database: Recent Developments and Partnerships. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 92, 704\u2013708, https://doi.org/10.1175/2011BAMS3015.1
* Willett, K. M., Williams Jr., C. N., Dunn, R. J. H., Thorne, P. W., Bell, S., de Podesta, M., Jones, P. D., Parker D. E. (2013). HadISDH: An updated land surface specific humidity product for climate monitoring. Climate of the Past, 9, 657-677, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-657-2013
ocean:
* Willett, K. M., Dunn, R. J. H., Kennedy, J. J., Berry, D. I.(2020). Development of the HadISDH marine humidity climate monitoring dataset. Earth System Science Data, 12, 2853-2880, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-2853-2020
* Freeman, E., S.D. Woodruff, S.J. Worley, S.J. Lubker, E.C. Kent, W.E. Angel, D.I . Berry, P. Brohan, R. Eastman, L. Gates, W. Gloeden, Z. Ji, J. Lawrimore, N.A. Rayner, G. Rosenhagen, Smith, S.R. (2016). ICOADS Release 3.0: A major update to the historical marine climate record. International Journal of Climatology, https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.4775
Data download: https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/global-near-surface-humidity-data-hadisdh

Note:
The observational dataset for specific humidity does not cover the entire globe. The following figure shows the regions of the world that are covered in blue: