Impressions, anecdotes and experiences from the field. Authors are beneficiaries of SPI funding. The posts present the authors’ reflections of their field experiences.
Moulins are near vertical drainage shafts for surface meltwater in ice sheets. On Earth’s large ice sheets, they can be several hundred metres deep. While we assume they are vertical, we now know that moulins can form complex geometries with the ability to store significant amounts of water. As such […]
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Glaciers are melting. This is especially true in the Alpine region, which is one of the areas experiencing the fastest rates of ice melting worldwide. As a consequence of global warming, combined with a higher input of water into the outflow system, more organisms are being released into the outflow […]
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Going to Antarctica as a renewable energy scientist? Ever since I first visited the Arctic, I dreamed of doing science in Antarctica, but with a study background in renewable energy, I never thought it would be possible. Who would consider using renewable energy in these conditions, right? Well, it turns […]
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I would like to recognise and pay respect to the deep history and culture of this island, and acknowledge the Muwinina and Palawa peoples, the traditional owners and custodians of the land upon which I conducted my visit; and pay respect to elders past, present and emerging. During my 3 […]
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Notes from the field, Ferpècle and Mont Miné Glacier, Valais, Switzerland, 2022-2023 2022When I discovered the field on 12 July 2022, I was amazed by the proximity of the Mont Miné Glacier and by the beautiful alluvial zone of Ferpècle. One of our first activities was to hike to the […]
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Sometime last fall, I had a bad dream. I was visiting my field site, Portage Glacier, and checking on the instrumentation that I had – in real life – installed during the summer a couple months prior. In the dream, I took the field computer, plugged in one of the […]
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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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In the summer of 2023, the Ecology research group of the University of Basel embarked on a six-week field campaign to re-survey historical vegetation data in Svalbard with the core question of how Arctic and alpine plant distributions respond to environmental change. Scientific background: Arctic and alpine plant responses to […]
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When the airplane dipped through the white fluff of the clouds and I could see the first icebergs sparkling from the sun in the Fjord of Narsarsuaq, I knew this was going to be a great Greenland field season. The plan was to spend the next four weeks in the […]
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