Daniel Farinotti

Daniel Farinotti (born 9 January 1982) is a Swiss glaciologist. Since 2016, he has been Professor of Glaciology at ETH Zurich and also conducts research at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL).
==Career==
Farinotti graduated as an environmental engineer from ETH Zurich in 2007. He completed his doctorate at the Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW) at the ETH Zurich from 2008 to 2010, where he also worked as a research assistant until 2012, and studied applied statistics at the same time. Further scientific activities took him to the British Antarctic Survey (2010-2012), to the Section for Hydrology at the German Research Centre for Geosciences (2012-2014), to the WSL (since 2014) and to the Laboratory for Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW) at ETH Zurich (since 2016). He has been a member of the Scientific and Technological Advisory Board of the Swiss Polar Institute since 2022 and a member of the Strategy Commission of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering (D-BAUG) of ETH Zurich since 2023.
==Research fields==
In the glaciological community, the Farinotti’s name is probably mostly associated to the estimation of glacier ice thickness from surface characteristics. The work in this domain includes one of the first methods capable of estimating the ice thickness distribution from such characteristics, as well as the extension of it to the mountain-range and global scale. These works have not only inspired a series of similar approaches, but also triggered a number of applications in both the glaciological and hydrological domain. The model-based work has been complemented by a number of observations acquired in-situ.
A second line of research is concerned with the long-term evolution of glaciers and glacier mass balance, as well as with the resulting hydrological implications. Farinotti’s work includes the development of a dedicated hydro-glaciological model, approaches to model the evolution of glaciers at the regional scale; as well as a series of investigations in the Alps and other regions in the world. In these works, particular attention was dedicated to the combination of in-situ and remotely sensed observations, the latter ranging from satellite imagery, over laser altimetry, to space-borne gravimetry.
In the works related to the hydrology of glacierized basins, the implications for hydropower production have often been a focus. The evolution of water availability in catchments presently exploited for hydropower operations has been a target as has been the quantifications of the role of glacier retreat to the total hydropower production, or the assessment of the hydropower potential of deglacierizing areas. Further work in this domain include a series of (unpublished) technical reports commissioned by hydropower companies.
A more recent line of research pursued by Farinotti with his research group, is related to the subglacial environment. The activities include both field- and laboratory-based experiments, as well as numerical works that aim at a better understanding of the processes that govern subglacial hydrology and subglacial sediment transport. Already terminated projects include investigations of the sediment transport for different basins in the Alps, the characterization of such processes in bedrock overdeepenings, the determination of the hydraulics and termodynamics of ice-incised channels, or investigations conducted in artificial moulins. Ongoing activities focus on numerical simulations in preparation of laboratory experiments focusing on channelised subglacial flow and till dynamics.
==Notable publications==
* Daniel, Farinotti, Stephanie Usselmann, Matthias Huss, Andreas Bauder, Martin Funk (2012). Runoff evolution in the Swiss Alps: Projections for selected high-alpine catchments based on ENSEMBLES scenarios. In Hydrological Processes, Volume 26, No. 13, 2012, pp. 1909-1924, doi:10.1002/hyp.8276
* Daniel Farinotti, Laurent Longuevergne, Geir Moholdt, Doris Duethmann, Thomas Mölg, Tobias Bolch, Sergiy Vorogushyn, Andreas Güntner: Substantial glacier mass loss in the Tien Shan over the past 50 years. In: Nature Geoscience. Volume 8, No. 9, 2015, pp. 716–722, doi:10.1038/NGEO2513
* Daniel Farinotti, Walter. W. Immerzeel, Remco de Kok, Duncan J. Quincey, Amaury Dehecq: Manifestations and mechanisms of the Karakoram glacier Anomaly. In: Nature Geoscience. Volume 13, No. 1, 2020, pp. 8-17, doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0513-5
Category:1982 births
Category:People from Locarno
Category:Swiss people
Category:Swiss glaciologists
Category:Professors