The climate science community is mourning the loss of a pioneering climate scientist and glaciologist, Konrad Steffen. Koni, as he was known to his friends and colleagues, apparently fell to his death in a deep opening in the ice called a crevasse on Saturday while conducting research in West Greenland.
Reuters
With nearly 15,000 academic citations to his name, Steffen, who was 68 years old, dedicated his life to studying the fast-melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. Ironically, it was the dangers posed by smelting around the Swiss Camp in Greenland – a research post he founded in 1990 – that claimed his life.
Jason Box, a well-known ice climatologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, had worked alongside Steffen for many years and was with him immediately before he disappeared.
Box says the snowy, windy weather was disorienting at the time. He says Steffen “eventually went above the safety environment in low visible, windy conditions. Koni fell into a crevasse on water while the rest of us worked nearby, unaware. The last thing he told us was he was after view data. “
The team organized a long search and eventually found evidence in the thin ice. “[We] found a 2.5 meter long busted through hole in the 3 cm thick floor of the crevasse 8 meters down, “Box wrote in a message thread on Twitter.” I’m told no one is floating in such cold fresh water. Since he was not found, I think he stays 8 feet down in the water. ”
“Personally, Koni was like a father,” Box told CBS News. “Incredible man. Enormous loss. Tears fall all over the world.”
In a tweet earlier today, citing Steffen to his craft, Box called for an offer from Abraham Lincoln: “It is for us the living here to be dedicated to the unfinished work that those who fought here, so far to have been so generous. “
This sentiment was widely shared by the scientific community. The Swiss Polar Institute, where Steffen serves as scientific director, said in a statement on its website, “We will miss Koni deeply, but are committed to continuing his mission to make a contribution, big or small, to a difference.” It included a link to a video about Steffen and his work.
The statement went on to say: “We lost a wonderful person and true friend too soon.” An emits of memories on social media pay homage to Steffen’s kindness, warmth and generosity.
Steffen began his career in 1977 when he graduated from ETH Zurich, an institute with which he still collaborated. “With the death of Koni Steffen, we have lost a uniquely friendly and dedicated colleague,” ETH Board Chairman Michael Hengartner said in a statement.
Over the years, he has held many leading positions in climate science. Most recently, Steffen has been the director of the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (also known by its German acronym WSL) since 2012. Prior to that, he founded the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). University of Colorado at Boulder, a joint NOAA University Institute.
The local Boulder newspaper, the Daily Camera, described him as an incredibly active leader and connoisseur in the field of glaciology, noting that “in the decades since the founding of the Swiss Camp, he has killed numerous graduates and scientists around the melting ice and rising seas to observe levels, such as camera crew and a U.S. congressional delegation. ”
Former U.S. Vice President and Nobel laureate for his work on climate change, Al Gore, praised Steffen’s influence. “Koni’s famous work as a glaciologist has been instrumental in deepening the global climate crisis,” Gore wrote.
CIRES director Waleed Abdalati, who had Steffen as a counselor in graduate school and later knew him as a colleague, described his passion for science as infected.
“I just remember thinking he loved this,” Abdalati said, “he went on to do what he loved.”
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