News
Severe melting of glaciers despite heavy snowfall at high altitudes
After the extreme circumstances encountered in 2022 and 2023, no relief is in sight for Swiss glaciers. Despite exceptionally large volumes of snow during the winter, a combination of temperatures in July and August that at times reached record levels and dust from the Sahara resulted in a loss of 2.5% of the glacier volume. This was reported by the Swiss Commission for Cryosphere Observation of the Swiss Academy of Sciences on Tuesday.
Image: Matthias Huss
How the microstructure of snow in the Arctic influences sea ice and the global climate
Amy R. Macfarlane will be awarded the Prix de Quervain 2024 for her excellent and innovative doctoral dissertation at the ETH Zurich and the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF. Her research serves as a base to reduce major uncertainties on sea ice modelling and to improve the quality of global climate models predictions. For this, she applied a wide variety of instruments to measure the microstructure of snow in high resolution directly in the Arctic for the first time.
Image: Calle Schöning
Keine Erholung für den Permafrost in der Schweiz
Nach zwei Jahren mit wenig Schnee und sehr heissen Sommern bleibt der Permafrost in der Schweiz im Herbst 2023 warm und der Eisgehalt des Bodens nahm vielerorts weiter ab. Die Blockgletscher bewegten sich zudem schnell talwärts. Dies geht aus den neuesten Messungen des Schweizer Permafrost-Messnetzes hervor.
Image: Matthias Lichtenegger
