The nature of the solar chromosphere -- a thin atmospheric layer embedded between the photosphere and the corona -- has been elusive for a long time because the small number of suitable diagnostics and the difficulties in their interpretation hampered its observation. Recent advances in observational performance and numerical simulations have now revolutionised our understanding of the solar chromosphere. This concerns in particular the structure and dynamics on small spatial and temporal scales. As a result, the picture of the solar chromosphere changed towards a complex compound of intermittent domains, which are dynamically coupled to the layers below and above. One example for this coupling are so-called swirl events, which were discovered recently with the Swedish Solar Telescope at high spatial, temporal, and spectral high-resolution.
I will present observations and numerical simulations, which explain swirls as observational signature of rotating magnetic flux structures. These dynamic tornado-like events extend throughout the solar atmosphere and may thus channel energy into the solar corona.