Chapter 0: Why a flight computer? At the daring frontier of science, deep within the Extreme Environments Research Laboratory (a.k.a. EERL), we chase clouds and wrestle with aerosols in the wildest corners of the planet – the polar regions! Our secret weapon? A helium-filled tethered balloon that gracefully ascends into […]
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This year, Swiss Polar Class collaborated with Schulverlag plus, a Swiss publisher specialised in educational material. Together, they developed a new learning programme focused on polar regions and their significance to the global climate. Three Poles, One World (Drei Pole, eine Welt – eine Zusammenarbeit mit Swiss Polar Class) aligns […]
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At the end of September 2025, two years after my last visit, I left Montréal and boarded a flight to my field site: the mining settlement of Schefferville and the adjacent Innu community of Matimekush-Lac John. The journey included brief stopovers in Québec City and Sept-Îles to collect additional passengers […]
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Co-funded by Swiss Polar Institute and BNP Paribas Swiss Foundation, the Polar Access Fund focuses on early-career researchers who plan an initial field trip to a polar region or a remote high-altitude area. The research conducted during the field trip must be part of an existing overarching project and be related to […]
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As predicted, the journey plan to Antarctica was evolving as dynamically as the extreme team dynamics data we expected to uncover in such an extreme context. The volatile Antarctic environment seemed to have transcended into the polar mindset. However, after months of preparations and several days of anticipation in Punta […]
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Between 8 and 12 September 2025, spatial planners from Avannaata Kommunia in Greenland participated in a week-long workshop dedicated to “Integrated Risk Management” of mass-movement processes. The event was organised in the framework of Swiss Polar Institute’s Konrad Steffen Grant. The core idea of the workshop was to share first-hand […]
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In view of the MoU signed between Swiss Polar Institute (SPI) and the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) and the close collaborations between our respective scientific communities, we are pleased to relay the following information from AWI about access to their POLAR 5 and/or POLAR 6 aircraft for scientific operations. The […]
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In collaboration with SPI Flagship Initiatives GreenFjord and PAMIR, Swiss Polar Class published two new bilingual modules. Activity sheets, podcasts and videos offer an accessible and engaging introduction to interdisciplinary research in cryospheric sciences. Available in French and German, the content is tailored to primary classes (5H to 8H / […]
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Flying over the Kongsfjorden (Spitsbergen, Svalbard) is always an intense moment. This was my second mission for the project The greening of Arctic lake shores under the effect of climate change: a new hotspot for benthic cyanobacteria, yet every arrival feels new: the Arctic never looks the same twice. By […]
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