WSL’s glacier monitoring team gets a new member

Dr Matthias Huss (born 1980) has been involved in measuring and modelling changes to glaciers in the past, present and future since the start of his career, an activity that reflects his keen personal interest in mountains and glaciers. He has been at the helm of Swiss glacier monitoring network GLAMOS since 2016 and comes to WSL in Birmensdorf from ETH Zurich.

Dr Matthias Huss (born 1980) has been involved in measuring and modelling changes to glaciers in the past, present and future since the start of his career, an activity that reflects his keen personal interest in mountains and glaciers. He has been at the helm of Swiss glacier monitoring network GLAMOS since 2016 and comes to WSL in Birmensdorf from ETH Zurich.

Glaciers are key indicators of climate change and have a significant impact on the water balance in their catchment zones and on the rise in the sea level. In recent years, Huss has developed a number of globally recognised methods and models for calculating glacier retreat more accurately both locally and worldwide, winning several prestigious ‘young scientist’ awards (EGU, AGU, IUGG) for his work.

Swiss glacier monitoring network GLAMOS, which is supported by several universities, adds to existing series of glacier measurements – some of which stretch back over 100 years – and combines them with new observation techniques. As the head of GLAMOS, Huss is responsible for coordinating work and sharing findings with a wider audience, as well as for measurements and the further enhancement of the evaluation methodology.

Huss is based in the Mountain Hydrology and Mass Movements Research Unit at WSL and is a member of Prof. Daniel Farinotti’s research group. In addition to his glacier-monitoring activities, he will be stepping up his involvement in global studies on glacier evolution and its effects.