The 80th big birthday of em.Prof. Michael Hantel, who is working at the department for 33 years, was celebrated with the workshop "Climatological concepts through the ages", organized by the Commission of Clima and Air Quality (KKL) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. The workshop, who has been opened by the leaving chairman of the KKL, Prof. Manfred Gasserbauer, and moderated by the designated chairman Prof. Gottfried Kirchengast, gave an excellent overview of the history of climate science.

Prof. Claussen of the MPI Hamburg explained descriptive, with which different ways clima can be be defined conceptual, and he gave spectacular access in the nature and benefit of clima modelling.

Prof. Rubel of the Veterinary University of Vienna, he was the first postgraduate of Prof. Hantel at the University of Vienna, felt out the very beginning of the clima classification of Köppen-Geiger and demonstrated impressive their usefulness also for actual natural science.

Prof. Hantel finally showed in his personally held talk, how he has been formed in his scientific way by some excellent colleagues, and that the zonal average as simplified point of view of the climatic system, which he demonstrated with a more than 40 years old movie, also can give valuable insights with actual datasets, for example concerning the question about intensifying of the hydrological cycle.

Several times the speakers mentioned the tireless teaching of Prof. Hantel at the Department of Meteoorlogy and Geophysics, for which the department thanks heartfully. The numerous visit of this event of his past but also actual students testifies to the high estimation of the youth.

We wish him and his family onward much health and pleasure at his various activities.