Publications related to Retreat of glaciers since 1850

The microbial genomics of glacier-fed streams: adaptations to an extreme ecosystem

Glacier-fed streams are the cold, ultra-oligotrophic, and unstable streams that are fed by glacial meltwater. Despite these extreme conditions, they harbour a diverse and abundant microbial diversity that develops into biofilms, covering the boulders and s ...

EPFL2024

Global emergent responses of stream microbial metabolism to glacier shrinkage

Tom Ian Battin, Hannes Markus Peter, Massimo Bourquin, Nicola Deluigi, Tyler Joe Kohler, Michail Styllas

Most cryospheric ecosystems are energy limited. How their energetics will respond to climate change remains largely unknown. This is particularly true for glacier-fed streams, which interface with the cryosphere and initiate some of Earth's largest river s ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Into the ice: Exploration and data capturing in glacial moulins by a tethered robot

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Max Mirko Polzin

Glacial moulins (cylindrical meltwater drainage shafts) provide valuable insights into glacier dynamics, but are inaccessible and hazardous environments for humans to study. Exploring them using passive sensor probes has revealed their complex geometry, wh ...

Wiley2024

The biofilm ecology of proglacial floodplain streams

Jade Brandani

Glacial forelands figure among the most dynamic landscapes on Earth, and their formation is currently accelerating given glacier shrinkage. Draining these forelands are streams hosting unique microbial communities, which have the capacity to impact both th ...

EPFL2023

Southern Hemisphere atmospheric history of carbon monoxide over the late Holocene reconstructed from multiple Antarctic ice archives

Jérôme Chappellaz

Carbon monoxide (CO) is a naturally occurring atmospheric trace gas, a regulated pollutant, and one of the main components determining the oxidative capacity of the atmosphere. Evaluating climate–chemistry models under different conditions than today and c ...

2023

Reproducibility Dataset for CRYOWRF v1.0

Varun Sharma, Michael Lehning, Franziska Gerber

This repository contains data required for reproducibility of the results to be published in the associated manuscript. Apart from reproducibility, the attached datasets also serve as templates for new users to adopt CRYOWRF in their research. The datasets ...

2023

Ecosystem engineering by periphyton in Alpine proglacial streams

Tom Ian Battin, Davide Mancini, Marc Aguet, Adrijan Selitaj, Matteo Roncoroni

Stream periphytons are candidate ecosystem engineers in proglacial margins. Here, we quantify the extent to which they are engineers for the case of hillslope-fed tributaries in the terrace zones of proglacial margin alluvial plains. Candidate ecosystem en ...

WILEY2023

Homogeneous Environmental Selection Structures the Bacterial Communities of Benthic Biofilms in Proglacial Floodplain Streams

Tom Ian Battin, Hannes Markus Peter, Susheel Bhanu Busi, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud, Leïla Ezzat, Massimo Bourquin, Jade Brandani, Tyler Joe Kohler, Stylianos Fodelianakis

Streams draining proglacial floodplains harbor benthic biofilms comprised of diverse microbial communities. These high-mountain ecosystems are rapidly changing with climate warming, and it is therefore critical to better understand the mechanisms underlyin ...

AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY2023

Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Snow on Central Arctic Sea Ice and its Implications

David Nicholas Wagner

This thesis presents a comprehensive investigation of the interaction between precipitation and wind-induced erosion and deposition of snow on Arctic sea ice. The study uses observations from the 2019-2020 MOSAiC expedition and makes use of the 3D snow cov ...

EPFL2023

The Biogeochemical Legacy of Arctic Subglacial Sediments Exposed by Glacier Retreat

Tyler Joe Kohler

During past periods of advance, Arctic glaciers and ice sheets overrode soil, sediments, and vegetation and buried significant stores of organic matter (OM); these glaciers are now shrinking rapidly due to climate warming. Little is known about the biogeoc ...

2022

Catchment characteristics and seasonality control the composition of microbial assemblages exported from three outlet glaciers of the Greenland Ice Sheet

Tyler Joe Kohler, Martina Andrea Schön

Glacial meltwater drains into proglacial rivers where it interacts with the surrounding landscape, collecting microbial cells as it travels downstream. Characterizing the composition of the resulting microbial assemblages in transport can inform us about i ...

Frontiers Media SA2022

The microbiome of cryospheric ecosystems

Tom Ian Battin, Hannes Markus Peter, Susheel Bhanu Busi, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud, Leïla Ezzat, Massimo Bourquin, Tyler Joe Kohler, Stylianos Fodelianakis

The cryosphere includes those parts of Earth where water or soil is frozen, such as snow, ice, glaciers and permafrost soils. Here, the authors present a global inventory of cryospheric microbial communities and their genetic repertoires. ...

Nature Portfolio2022

In situ observations of the Swiss periglacial environment using GNSS instruments

Alessandro Cicoira, Matthias Meyer, Hugo Raetzo

Monitoring of the periglacial environment is relevant for many disciplines including glaciology, natural hazard management, geomorphology, and geodesy. Since October 2022, Rock Glacier Velocity (RGV) is a new Essential Climate Variable (ECV) product within ...

COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH2022

Glacier shrinkage will accelerate downstream decomposition of organic matter and alters microbiome structure and function

Tom Ian Battin, Hannes Markus Peter, Susheel Bhanu Busi, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud, Leïla Ezzat, Massimo Bourquin, Nicola Deluigi, Matteo Tolosano, Tyler Joe Kohler, Jade Brandani, Stylianos Fodelianakis, Paraskevi Pramateftaki, Vincent Henri De Staercke, Michail Styllas, Martina Andrea Schön

The shrinking of glaciers is among the most iconic consequences of climate change. Despite this, the downstream consequences for ecosystem processes and related microbiome structure and function remain poorly understood. Here, using a space-for-time substi ...

Wiley2022

Arctic mercury cycling

Hélène Paule Angot

Anthropogenic mercury (Hg) emissions have driven marked increases in Arctic Hg levels, which are now being impacted by regional warming, with uncertain ecological consequences. This Review presents a comprehensive assessment of the present-day total Hg mas ...

2022

Snowfall and snow accumulation processes during the MOSAiC winter and spring season

Michael Lehning, Marc Schneebeli Zeugin, David Nicholas Wagner, Markus Frey, Marc Oggier

Data from the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition allowed us to investigate the temporal dynamics of snowfall, snow accumulation, and erosion in great detail for almost the whole accumulation season (N ...

2021

Regimes of primary production and their drivers in Alpine streams

Tom Ian Battin, Amber Joy Ulseth, Marta Boix Canadell, Luis Gómez Gener, Mélanie Clémençon

Primary production is a fundamental ecosystem process that influences nutrient and carbon cycling, and trophic structure in streams. The magnitude and timing of gross primary production (GPP) are typically controlled by hydrology, light, nutrient availa ...

2021

Black carbon and dust in the Third Pole glaciers: revaluated concentrations, mass absorption cross-sections and contributions to glacier ablation

Julia Schmale, Yang Li, Xinyang Li

In snow and ice, light-absorbing particles (LAPs), such as black carbon (BC) and dust, accelerate the melting of Third Pole glaciers (TPGs). In this study, we revaluated LAP concentrations in the snow pits of TPGs (SP-TPGs), measured LAP mass absorption cr ...

2021

A glacier-ocean interaction model for tsunami genesis due to iceberg calving

Johan Alexandre Philippe Gaume, Ming Gao

Dynamic glacier fracture and the subsequent generation and propagation of iceberg-induced tsunamis are reproduced using a unified numerical glacier-ocean model, in line with observations at the Eqip Sermia glacier in Greenland, as well as laboratory experi ...

SPRINGERNATURE2021

Evolution of stream and lake water temperature under climate change

Alfred Johny Wüest, Damien Bouffard, Wolf Hendrik Huwald, Adrien Michel, Bettina Schaefli, Carl Love Mikael Råman Vinnå, Martin Schmid

This report presents past observations and projects the future development of water temperature in Swiss lakes and rivers. Projections are made until the end of the 21st century using the CH2018 climate scenarios. Besides climate change effects on temperat ...

Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN)2021