Daniel Farinotti

Research Statement

AI generated · Oct 25, 2026

Daniel Farinotti's research centers on quantifying how much ice the world's glaciers hold and how that ice will change. His most-cited lead work produced a consensus estimate of the global glacier ice-thickness distribution, and earlier studies developed methods for estimating ice volume and thickness in alpine glaciers and assembled a distributed ice-thickness and volume dataset for glaciers worldwide. A parallel thread tests the reliability of such estimates, notably the ITMIX intercomparison of ice-thickness models, and projects future glacier evolution in the European Alps under regional climate scenarios. Beyond these lead contributions, he appears as a co-author on a global assessment of accelerated glacier mass loss in the early twenty-first century and on the analysis of the 2021 Chamoli rock and ice avalanche disaster in the Indian Himalaya, connecting his ice-thickness expertise to hazard and sea-level questions. Related work extends to runoff projections for highly glacierized alpine catchments and to hydropower and water-storage potential in future glacier-free basins. No software, datasets, or grants are indexed beyond his publications. Across these outputs, the throughline is a sustained effort to make glacier ice volume, its uncertainty, and its hydrological consequences measurable at scales from single catchments to the whole planet.

Most Cited Works

Accelerated global glacier mass loss in the early twenty-first century

Romain Hugonnet, Robert McNabb, Etienne Berthier, Brian Menounos, Christopher Nuth, Luc Girod, Daniel Farinotti, Matthias Huss, Ines Dussaillant, Fanny Brun, Andreas Kääb

Nature2021

1,906Citations

A consensus estimate for the ice thickness distribution of all glaciers on Earth

Daniel Farinotti, Matthias Huss, Johannes Jakob Fürst, Johannes Landmann, Horst Machguth,

Research Areas

Cryospheric studies and observationsGeology and Paleoclimatology ResearchLandslides and related hazardsHydrology and Watershed Management StudiGeophysics and Gravity Measurements

Affiliations & Education

Employment

2016–present· now
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich(CH)
Group leader · Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW) - Glaciology
2014–present· now
Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL(CH)
Group leader · Glaciolgy

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Sources