Reinhard Böhm was attending a public meeting of the Austrian Alpine Club, giving the main talk on Sunday Oct. 7, 2012. On Monday he went to the Sonnblick Observatory (3106 m a.s.l.), where he died after a heart-attack – the place where he had done many measurements and much research.
Reinhard Böhm, a climatologist at the ZAMG Vienna, Austria (Central Institute of Meteorology and Geo-Dynamics) worked mainly in the field of high-mountain climatology and climate change. He was an open-minded person and an excellent scientist. Reinhard was well connected to the dendro-community, and particularly well-known and highly regarded within the European community. From 2003 to 2006 he coordinated the European project ALP-IMP “Multi-centennial climate variability in the Alps based on Instrumental data, Model simulations and Proxy data”, in which several dendro-labs were involved.
Reinhard was an enthusiastic person, always willing to discuss and to explain results and measurements as well as to share ideas. He was also involved in a school project dealing with precipitation change in the northeastern part of Austria during recent years. At his final presentation in April 2012, Reinhard shared his knowledge about climate change (especially for this region) in an interesting talk to students. Because of his inspirational and friendly nature, the 14- to 17-year-olds in attendance listened attentively for more than an hour.
We have lost a warm and friendly partner and friend. He leaves a great gap.
—Contributed by Michael Grabner
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences
– BOKU Vienna, Austria
