@vaw-glaciology.bsky.social
This is the voice of ETH Zurich's Glaciology group (Prof. Farinotti), jointly affiliated to @wslresearch.bsky.social.
Ever wondered what a #glacier looks like from the inside? Last weekend our postdocs Christophe Ogier & Marin Kneib descended 60 m into a moulin on the #PlaineMorte glacier for surveying englacial melt channels. Photographer Pierre Jeanneret captured the stunning hidden world below ❄️🧗♂️🧊
03.12.2025 10:46 — 👍 16 🔁 8 💬 1 📌 3
🚨 New paper!
Led by Laura Gabriel, we used Surface NMR to probe liquid water inside #Rhonegletscher 🇨🇭🧊💧
Despite heavy noise, SNMR detected a thin (~1 m) water-rich layer, consistent with GPR. A big step toward mapping englacial hydrology with SNMR!
📄 Paper link: tc.copernicus.org/articles/19/...
New paper led by our PhD @alexvdesch.bsky.social ! 🇨🇭🧊
We show how glacio-hydrological model results depend strongly on precipitation forcing and spatial resolution. High-res data = key for reliable #glacier runoff estimates.
Check out the study 📄 hess.copernicus.org/articles/29/...
📢 New paper!
Our colleague Marin Kneib shows that #avalanches are key for glacier survival worldwide.
💡 First global estimate of avalanche contribution to glacier mass balance:
• 11% in the Alps
• 22% in New Zealand
• Negative in the Andes
🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
What does glacier fieldwork look like for @matthias-huss.bsky.social , head of #GLAMOS? 🧊📏
Politiken followed him on #PlaineMorte, where he documents the beauty, and rapid loss, of Swiss ice.
📄 politiken.dk/edition/news...
🚨 New paper! ❄️📄
New paper by @matthias-huss.bsky.social Huss, Andreas Bauder & colleagues document the extinction of #Pizolgletscher, using 130+ years of observations 📊🏔️. A rare chance to follow a glacier from a healthy state to its final disappearance.
🔗 doi.org/10.1017/aog.2025.10024
#OpenCall The Polar Access Fund for early-career researchers in polar science is now open!
Applications welcome by 20 January 2026, 12:00 (noon, Swiss time)
Access the call documents: swisspolar.ch/spi-funding-...
We look forward to your applications!
#fieldwork #Arctic #Antarctica
🚨 New paper!
Co-authored by VAW colleagues Marijn van der Meer & @matthias-huss.bsky.social , this new paper present the Mass Balance Machine (MBM), an XGBoost model that predicts seasonal glacier mass balance from sparse data and often beats traditional models.
🔗 tc.copernicus.org/articles/19/...
🌟 Hoeraa! Great news from VAW Glaciology!
Both Prof. Daniel Farinotti and @matthias-huss.bsky.social Huss made it onto Clarivate’s Highly Cited Researchers list, the top 1% most cited scientists worldwide over the past decade. A fantastic achievement! ❄️📚
Aurora over the Alps! 🌌❄️ A powerful solar storm hit Earth, and the northern lights reached far south. Thanks to the long-exposure capabilities of several Alpine webcams, this rare phenomenon was beautifully captured above our #glaciers. The purple glow created magical scenes.
14.11.2025 14:48 — 👍 16 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0
What a blast! 🚀 At ETH Zurich’s Treffpunkt Science City, our VAW Glaciology member Dr. Mylène Jacquemart shared insights on alpine hazards, rock–ice avalanches & the forces shaping our mountains. A packed hall. Great to see so many young minds interested in climate change! ❄️
12.11.2025 07:03 — 👍 13 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
🧊 A new mass-balance season is in its second month. How are Swiss glaciers doing so far? Time for a check! Real-time #observations and #modelling for 12 #glaciers show nothing exceptional so far: snow cover remains thin (25–100 cm). Conditions have returned to average or slightly below. Data: GLAMOS
10.11.2025 18:58 — 👍 8 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 1
🌍 When nature shows its force
Rockfalls, glacier collapses & debris flows are becoming more intense in a warming world. Join our VAW-glaciology group member Mylène Jacquemart at Treffpunkt Science City for her talk “Es rumort am Berg, Klimawandel und alpine Naturgefahren”
ethz.ch/de/news-und-...
A New study by Léon Russel et al. (with #VAW member Marin Kneib) shows Saharan dust boosted melt on Argentière Glacier 🇫🇷 by ~10%, and up to 13% in 2022. Desert dust darkens the ice, lowers albedo, and can thereby accelerate glacier loss. ❄️
tc.copernicus.org/articles/19/...
@meteofrance.com
Each summer, our students head to the Rhône Glacier to study a vanishing world. Hands-on work with GPR, drones, and ice drilling turns theory into practice! This year's course was beautifully captured in Terre & Nature!
www.terrenature.ch/nature/sur-l...
MSc Topics 2025/2026 🌍❄️
Curious about glaciers, snow, or ice sheets? We’ve got 14 exciting MSc projects. From fieldwork on Swiss glaciers to modelling subglacial drainage beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
👉 Explore & apply:
🔗 sirop.org/app/searchOp...
Join us and dive into the cryosphere! 🧊
Want to get involved? 👆
In its first phase, ContinuIX is actively collecting datasets of: ice thickness, velocity, elevation change (DEMs) & in-situ mass balance (at high spatial resolution)
Submit your data here: forms.gle/hpp9gAEL7oka...
How do glaciologists turn into astronauts? 🌏🛰️
Jokes aside we're not heading into space just yet. A new #IACS #ContinuIX working group, co-chaired by #VAW's @marinkneib.bsky.social, uses satellite data to study ice thickness, velocities & more.
Image credits: Russ Mitchell
Exploring the hidden world beneath the #PersGlacier. Scanning the ice cave in 3D with a LiDAR system to reveal its shapes and layers.
10.10.2025 06:49 — 👍 8 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
The world beneath the ice is a magical place, full of light reflections and twinkling frozen crystals. ❄️
Read about #VAW PhD student Leo Hösli’s ice cave research in #SAC Die Alpen: www.sac-cas.ch/de/die-alpen...
⚠️ Ice caves are temporary and collapse.
Behind the scenes of our 1925–2025 repeat photography at Birchgletscher! 🎥
Check out the #SRF #Einstein documentary “Bergsturz Blatten VS” (aired yesterday), revisiting Blatten months after the tragic rock–ice avalanche.
👉 www.srf.ch/play/tv/eins...
[2/2] This year’s melt was driven by a snow-poor winter and summer heatwaves. Glaciers below 3k m lost over 2 m of ice. Shrinking glaciers also destabilize mountains, as seen in May, when a rock–ice avalanche buried Blatten in the Lötschental.
🔗 to #GLAMOS report: doi.glamos.ch/pubs/annualr...
[1/2] 📢 GLAMOS @scnat.ch press release out today: Swiss glaciers lost another 3% of their volume in 2025, the 4th-largest decline ever measured. In just 10 years, they’ve lost a quarter of their ice mass. Over 1k small glaciers have already vanished.
🔗 to press release: scnat.ch/en/uuid/i/9d...
[2/2] More on this story tomorrow in the #GLAMOS press release (01.10.2025).
And don’t miss the #SRF Einstein documentary on 02.10.2025, featuring the making-of our repeat photography.
@matthias-huss.bsky.social
#Glacier #ClimateChange #RepeatPhotography
[1/2] Sometimes pictures say more than 1,000 words.
This repeat photography of Birchgletscher (1927–2025) shows a century of change, ending in this year’s tragic collapse that destroyed Blatten and claimed one life.
📷 1927 vs 2025
New paper by colleagues at @unil.bsky.social (with our participation): 4D GPR imaging of a near-terminus glacier collapse feature. Drone-based radar reveals how cavities & subglacial channels evolve at the Rhône Glacier. 📖
tc.copernicus.org/articles/19/...
Fresh #snow is visible on several of our #glaciers through the real-time stakes, and more is on the way. ❄️ Winter is coming, marking an important recovery phase for glaciers after the (big) summer melt.
24.09.2025 09:00 — 👍 18 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0
🇨🇭 All #GLAMOS measurements on Swiss #glaciers are now in. The analysis is underway, and on October 1 we will release the full report for 2024/25. Stay tuned!
📸 Images: REUTERS / Denis Balibouse
Incredible ice loss measured again at #Konkordiaplatz on the #Aletsch #Glacier, home to the thickest ice in the #Alps (still about 800 m!). Yesterday’s survey revealed another –4.6 m of ice gone in just one year. :(
Measurements by @matthias-huss.bsky.social for GLAMOS
#IMC2025 is in full swing in #Innsbruck! You can meet us at several sessions throughout the week, looking forward to many inspiring science discussions!
15.09.2025 09:56 — 👍 7 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
