Harsh Beria

@harshberia.bsky.social

ETH PostDoc fellow @KirchnerLabETH, PhD in #isotope #hydrology @unil, Btech & Mtech @IITKgp, #inquisitive https://www.harshberia.com/

With spring melt increasing discharge, the ISCO started overflowing a bit. Funny scenes with floating vials inside Snow has melted very early in Dischma and it will be interesting to see how summer low flows fare. This is the new climate normal now!

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Harsh Beria@harshberia.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Snow is almost gone now and the ISCO piping had to be replaced. Stream conductivity suggests a lot of snow contribution to streamflow. We now installed a new palmex rain sampler to fix the problem of evaporation of rain. Looking forward to high-frequency sampling during spring

Snow is almost gone now and the ISCO piping had to be replaced. Stream conductivity suggests a lot of snow contribution to streamflow. We now installed a new palmex rain sampler to fix the problem of evaporation of rain. Looking forward to high-frequency sampling during spring

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Harsh Beria@harshberia.bsky.social · 6mo ago

After a month, the ISCO is finally working. Snowpack was vertically homogenised in terms of density and had a lot of liquid water Our Msc student Thomas, who is making the snow pits, will start his isotope sampling in Svalbard later this spring. Lots of ongoing @cryoscope.bsky.social work

After a month, the ISCO is finally working. Snowpack was vertically homogenised in terms of density and had a lot of liquid water Our Msc student Thomas, who is making the snow pits, will start his isotope sampling in Svalbard later this spring. Lots of ongoing @cryoscope.bsky.social work

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Harsh Beria@harshberia.bsky.social · 7mo ago

With snowfall in the last few days, our ISCO piping is frozen, and we can barely see the river. It was interesting to notice overflow conditions, with a thick ice layer separating the old snow and the recent snowfall. It's really hard to get daily stream samples in these conditions :(

Dense cloud coverage over the Swiss Plateau keeps sunshine away for much of the winter in places like Zurich. But above the clouds, there are blue skies and lovely sunshine. ☀️☁️

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With snowfall in the last few days, our ISCO piping is frozen, and we can barely see the river. It was interesting to notice overflow conditions, with a thick ice layer separating the old snow and the recent snowfall. It's really hard to get daily stream samples in these conditions :(

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Harsh Beria@harshberia.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Last Dischma samples for 2025. The ISCO continues to struggle with the cold weather, with water samples continuously freezing in the bottles. A few springs that I used to samples have also frozen up and stream levels are really low. Snowpack continues to be very shallow (~21 cm).

Last Dischma samples for 2025. The ISCO continues to struggle with the cold weather, with water samples continuously freezing in the bottles. A few springs that I used to samples have also frozen up and stream levels are really low. Snowpack continues to be very shallow (~21 cm).

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Harsh Beria@harshberia.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Snow has arrived in Dischma,with ~20 cm of accumulated snow. The snowpack is cold with surface snow temperatures around -11 °C. Unfortunately, our thermal insulation couldn’t keep the ISCO water samples from freezing 🥶🥺 Time to change the insulation?

Snow has arrived in Dischma,with ~20 cm of accumulated snow. The snowpack is cold with surface snow temperatures around -11 °C. Unfortunately, our thermal insulation couldn’t keep the ISCO water samples from freezing 🥶🥺 Time to change the insulation?

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Harsh Beria@harshberia.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Ephemeral snowmelt is clearly visible in Dischma, with snow height reducing from 8 to 7 cm during my 1 hour of water sampling ;) Took some surface snow samples to see potential sublimation signatures

First snow samples of the season from Dischma! ❄️ I have managed to keep the ISCO running every 6-hours in the past few weeks to capture potential ephemeral snowmelt signals in stream isotopes. Interestingly, EC rises at night and drops during the day, suggesting some melt influence in streamflow.

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Harsh Beria@harshberia.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Dillon installing the new ISCO in Dischma which is now sampling every 6-hours. We also made a small tour of Seehornwald to take pictures of the forest canopy

Our new research analyzing high-frequency soil moisture data from 40 NEON sites across 17 US ecoregions reveals the widespread occurrence of Preferential Flow (PF) & its drivers across continental scale environmental gradients. Published in AGU's Geophysical Research Letters doi.org/10.1029/2025...

Ubiquity and Causes of Soil Water Preferential Flow Across 17 Ecoregions

Preferential flow (PF) is ubiquitous across the USA and occurs in up to 60% of all rainfall events ≥2 mm Rainfall intensity, soil texture, and antecedent soil moisture emerge as critical in gener...

doi.org

Excited to share our new review in Reviews of Geophysics! We explored the latest advances in tracer-aided mixing models for studying water in the Critical Zone. We synthesize new tracer methods, models, & key insights. I think it'll be a valuable resource for the community doi.org/10.1029/2024...

Recent Advances in Tracer‐Aided Mixing Modeling of Water in the Critical Zone

Tracer-aided mixing models are uniquely capable of identifying water flow paths and sources within the Critical Zone Recent advances offer novel tracers and models for deeper and more accurate in...

doi.org

CryoSCOPE at IMC 2025! We presented a session on “Integrating cryosphere–atmosphere–hydrosphere dynamics: from process-level insights to large-scale modelling”, convened by Harsh Beria and co-convened by Mathieu Gravey, Marius G. Floriancic, Shaakir Shabir Dar and Rakesh K Hooda.

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Upgraded our rainfall collector today; it’s been so hot that the rain samples were warm! Might see evaporation affecting our samples soon 😥 A group of curious tourists asked if they could drink the stream water; maybe not — the cows upstream might be adding a touch of extra nitrogen 😉🐄

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Harsh Beria@harshberia.bsky.social · last yr.

Our rainfall collector suffered an insect attack, the rain collector was overflowing due to the recent thunderstorm. Nice weather in Dischma! @cryoscope.bsky.social

We had some great discussions on upcoming fieldwork in Dischma and got a first peek at some fascinating river temperature data

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HYCLIMM - Hydrology & Climate Impacts Group@hyclimm.bsky.social · last yr.

Last week, James Kirchner, @harshberia.bsky.social and @mfhydro.bsky.social visited us in Davos to discuss the ongoing field study of river water temperature and their study on river isotopes! Thanks for the nice discussions! #dischma @manuelaibrunner.bsky.social @mariagrundmann.bsky.social

A group of hydrologists are standing next to a mountain stream.

❄️ Meet CryoSCOPE! A 4-year EU-funded research project uniting 19 partners across 8 countries to better understand snow, glacier and permafrost processes - how they respond to climate change, and how these shifts affect downstream hydrological and biogeochemical cycles.