Experience and understand the causes and consequences of extreme weather!
New permanent exhibition „Weather Extremes“
Bremerhaven, July 2025: Since 20 march 2025 the Klimahaus Bremerhaven is inviting visitors on a fascinating journey through heat and fire, heavy rain and floods, wind and hurricanes. With the opening of the new permanent exhibition ‘Weather Extremes’, the unique world of knowledge and experience is opening a new chapter in its 15-year history. Ingrid Hayen, Managing Director of Klimahaus Bremerhaven, on the new exhibition: “Our new multimedia exhibition will appeal to all the senses. We invite our visitors to first playfully grasp the topic of weather, then to immerse themselves in extreme weather events on a journey across three levels and then to engage with the real experiences of contemporary witnesses and statements by scientists. Visitors need an extra ticket for the new permanent exhibition. Further information can be found in english at https://www.klimahaus-bremerhaven.de/en/11997-2/.
The new permanent exhibition addresses a topic that is also becoming increasingly topical in our part of the world. Formerly isolated phenomena and ‘events of the century’, extreme weather conditions are now becoming more frequent: The flood in the Ahr Valley in 2021, multiple floods in Emilia-Romagna in Italy in 2023, extreme rainfall in Spain in autumn 2024 – these three current examples show that the climate crisis is also leaving its mark on Europe. ‘We are the first generation to be born into a climate crisis,’ says 21-year-old Teresa Nuncio from Portugal, one of the 12 eyewitnesses in the new permanent exhibition that visitors can listen to. Whether police divers from the Ahr valley, the managing director of a start-up for the transformation of agriculture in Spain or cyclone survivor Khuku Moni from Bangladesh, the eyewitnesses concretise the experiences of rain, storm and heat that visitors have on their journey with the Uplift. Climate researcher Dr Friederike Otto then takes another look at each topic from a scientific perspective.
The uplift platform – the only one of its kind in the world – is the centrepiece of the new permanent exhibition, which covers a total of 1485 square metres. The term uplift comes from meteorology and describes air masses that rise upwards. This is also the direction in which the maximum of 40 travellers move through various weather scenarios from the first to the third floor in 12 minutes. On their way, they experience heat, forest fires, heavy rain, hail and a tropical cyclone. Room-filling sound and 360-degree screens turn the ride into an immersive experience that touches all the senses thanks to kinetic elements, fog and smoke effects, a water curtain and wind machines. An off-screen voice provides background information and invites you to marvel.
Visitors are introduced in a so-called prologue room, in which the German meteorologist and astronaut Dr Insa Thiele-Eich expresses the curiosity she has had since childhood about the phenomena of the weather and gets them in the mood for the experience.
As soon as they enter the ‘Weather Extremes’, visitors have the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the first special weather situation in peace and quiet and experience the forces of nature with interactive experiments. They can explore tornadoes and touch clouds. In a green screen studio, Özden Terli, the well-known meteorologist and weather presenter from television, invites visitors to present their own weather report. A few metres further on is the weather studio, which will be the setting for ‘weather shows’ in which Klimahaus employees explain the weather and its extreme variations.
The extended attraction of the Klimahaus has been planned since 2019, and the construction site was set up in spring 2022 while the Klimahaus was in operation. Numerous trades from the city and region, but also from other European countries, have contributed their expertise. The scientific partner of ‘Weather Extremes’ is the German Weather Service, media partner Arte.