Articles by: Basil Fahrlaender

Renewal of SPI’s national status and support by SERI

On 19 December, the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation SERI announced the renewal of SPI’s national status and an increased budget for the period 2025-2028. We are thankful for the renewed trust and the recognition of the important contributions of the Swiss polar and high-altitude science community.

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Join the SPI Team: We are recruiting a Librarian (60%-80%)

The Swiss Polar Institute is the owner and custodian of printed heritage and cultural documents relating to the polar and high-altitude regions. To establish a catalog that can be used by both specialists and the general public, the SPI is looking for a Librarian-Documentation Specialist 60-80% Location: Energypolis Campus, Sion […]

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Latent Cardiac Arrhythmia in Climbers on Mount Everest – Thomas Pilgrim

Extreme altitude poses exceptional challenges to human physiology. Manifestations of acute mountain sickness, reduced exercise tolerance, and sleep deprivation are well recognized consequences of the hypoxic hypobaric environment. Other sequelae are less apparent but may nevertheless be associated with substantial risk. Sudden cardiac death accounts for the majority of non-traumatic […]

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Historical Archives to monitor long-Term evolution of HImalayan debris-covered glaciers (HATHI) – Marin Kneib

14.09.2022 – The protagonists 1936 – Arnold Heim and August Gansser 1939 – André Roch, Ernst Huber, Fritz Steuri, David Zogg Six Swiss mountaineers, geologists, topographers. Pioneers who explored the hidden valleys of the Garhwal range of the Indian Himalaya more than eight decades ago. They made impressive first ascents, […]

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Investigating past Icelandic volcanism using cryptotephra and the Greenland ice cores – Imogen Gabriel

Volcanoes can have major impacts on the climate system, resulting in short-term cooling of earth’s surface following an eruption. Amongst the most active regions in the world is Iceland, the activity of which is reflected in its extremely diverse and largely desolate landscape. However, despite the high-activity of these volcanic […]

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Tracing past interglacial South Greenland Ice Sheet extent using meltwater sediment samples – Anne Sofie Søndergaard

Ice mass loss from Greenland has accelerated over the last few decades and it has recently been predicted that Greenland could become ice free in the next millennium. During past interglacial periods, when global mean temperatures reached values larger than today, the Greenland Ice Sheet was most likely smaller than […]

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Mackenzie Delta Lake sediments – Records of recent permafrost thaw? – Lisa Bröder

Arctic rivers and their deltas are increasingly impacted by the rapid changes the Northern regions are currently facing. The Canadian Northwest Territories have witnessed dramatic increases in temperature and precipitation over the last decade, leading to widespread thawing of previously frozen soils (permafrost). To investigate whether this changing climate has […]

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