Flight over the Rhône glacier.
Source: ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, image archive.

From our personal family archive. My brother is climbing the ice of the Morteratsch glacier.

Postcard from the Rhône glacier, found on Ebay (dated 1910).

My dad somewhere in Switzerland at the age of 17 years old.

Classification of natural snow crystals, ice crystals, and solid precipitation which has been widely used in snow and ice studies to describe snow crystal shapes. Source: ScienceDirect

Snowflake science. An artificial snow crystal growing on an electric needle in the lab. Source: Dr. Kenneth G. Libbrecht.

Glacier table on the Aletsch glacier Switzerland, 1974. A glacier table is a rock sitting on a pillar of ice on top of a glacier, as a result of the ice immediately beneath the rock being protected from the heat of the sun and not melting. Source: ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, image archive.

Air bubbles trapped within the glacial ice of Swiss Rhône glacier. The deeper the ice, the older the bubbles. They’re perfectly preserved time capsules. Each bubble of air tells what the earth’s climate was like when they got trapped.

As a 7 year old together with my brother and sister in front of the Swiss Morteratsch glacier.

Hotel Gletsch, which used to be located at the foot of the Rhône glacier.

A series of images of an artificial snow crystal growing on an electric needle in the lab. Inside the physics department at Caltech in Pasadena, Kenneth Libbrecht grows tiny, frozen crystals. He has learned how to make designer snowflakes, developed the art of growing ice by electricity. “I just thought, I really would love to make the perfect snowflake”. Source: Dr. Kenneth Libbrecht, snowcrystals.com

A cartographer at Switzerland's Federal Office of Topography is erasing and outlining the blue contour lines of a glacier, reflecting ice melted by climate change. Every few years, the national mapping agency sends a plane to photograph changes across the Swiss Alps. Source: nytimes.com, Federal Office of Topography swisstopo ©swisstopo.

Ice cores are cylinders of ice extracted from glaciers and ice sheets, acting as frozen time capsules for climate reconstruction. Each layer corresponds to specific years and seasons, with the youngest ice at the top. By analyzing these cores, scientists can understand past atmospheric conditions, the climate during snowfall, and how ice sheets and glaciers have changed over time due to climate variations. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Glacier hike on Aletsch glacier Switzerland, 1974.
Source: ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, image archive.

19 cm long section of an ice core from 1855 meter showing annual layer structure. The section contains 11 annual layers with summer layers (arrowed) sandwiched between darker winter layers. Glaciers form when millions of layers of snow compact themselves into ice. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

One of the frirst glacier maps. Drawn and painted entirely by hand, the map is a watercolour on a single sheet of paper in portrait format measuring 228 cm high and 115 cm wide. It was also the beginning of alpine glacier research. Source: Swisstopo.

Two women posing at the Rhône glacier (circa 1900). I found this stereoview photo on eBay.

Digital restoration of old photographs. Source: outdoormga_vintage.

Measuring instrument on the Ewigschneefeld, about 3500 meter above sea level, Aletsch glacier Switzerland, 1974-1980. Source: ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, image archive.

My mum and dad near the Rhône glacier around 1980.

Magic lantern slide Rhône glacier, approximately 1900.