2021-05-11


Prof. Dr. Heinz Hugo Loosli (10 June 1936 – 5 May 2021)

Heinz Hugo Loosli

Dear Colleagues

With great regret did we hear of the death of Heinz Hugo Loosli. With him we lose a dear friend, a colleague and a great promoter of the International Foundation High Altitude Research Stations Jungfraujoch and Gornergrat. Heinz Hugo Loosli recognized the enormous potential of radioactive tracers to improve our knowledge about diverse environmental processes and applied and implemented this very successfully. His working group at the Climate and Environmental Physics Division of the University of Bern delivered groundbreaking contributions, as for example the dating method with the Argon-isotope 39Ar. The time series of 14C as well as of 85Kr at Jungfraujoch, which he essentially initiated, are further milestones which he set. But he also perceived dangers which are related to emissions of radioactive substances. For this reason, he contributed his experiences and scientific knowledge for the public good and was the President of the Eidg. Kommission für Überwachung der Radioaktivität (KueR), today’s Eidgenössischen Kommission für Strahlenschutz (KSR). In this context he was also involved in programmes for the surveillance of radioactivity RADAIR, NADAM, and MADUK. He also started time series of 14C on leaf-samples in the surroundings of nuclear power plants and factories of the chemical industry.

Heinz Hugo Loosli was also strongly engaged in public relations activities for HFSJG, so as chair of the conference «Top Science at the Top of Europe» in the framework of the 75th anniversary of the International Foundation HFSJG in 2006, or as ambassador and tour leader of many interested visitor groups at Jungfraujoch. For this commitment and for his merits in promoting scientific projects at Jungfraujoch, also as an active member in the Jungfraujoch Commission of the Academy of Sciences Switzerland (1987-2001), SCNAT, he was appointed corresponding member of the International Foundation HFSJG in 2009.

We are indebted to Heinz Hugo Loosli and lose a sociable, humorous and likeable colleague.

Markus Leuenberger and Erwin Flückiger, HFSJG