__NOTOC__ Paul-Louis Mercanton (11 May 1876 – 25 February 1963) was a Swiss glaciologist, meteorologist and Arctic explorer.

Biography

Mercanton was born in

Lausanne Lausanne ( , ; ; ) is the capital and largest List of towns in Switzerland, city of the Swiss French-speaking Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Vaud, in Switzerland. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway bet ...

on 11 May 1876, the son of Eugène Mercanton, a lawyer, and Félicie Marie Lavanchy. He graduated in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from the

University of Lausanne The University of Lausanne (UNIL; ) in Lausanne, Switzerland, was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second-oldest in Switzerland, and one of the oldest universities ...

in 1899, and obtained a doctorate in physics from the same university in 1901. Mercanton was a professor of physics and electricity, then of meteorology and

geophysics Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and Physical property, properties of Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. Geophysicists conduct i ...

, at Lausanne from 1904 to 1938. He married Alice Marguerite Colomb in 1907. Mercanton directed

Vaud Vaud ( ; , ), more formally Canton of Vaud, is one of the Cantons of Switzerland, 26 cantons forming the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. It is composed of Subdivisions of the canton of Vaud, ten districts; its capital city is Lausanne. Its coat ...

's meteorological service from 1911 to 1941 and the Swiss Central Meteorological Station in

Zurich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

from 1934 to 1941, and was editor and co-author of ''Variations périodiques des glaciers des Alpes suisses'' ("Periodic Variations of the Glaciers of the

Swiss Alps The Alps, Alpine region of Switzerland, conventionally referred to as the Swiss Alps, represents a major natural feature of the country and is, along with the Swiss Plateau and the Swiss portion of the Jura Mountains, one of its three main Physica ...

") between 1907 and 1954. He also regularly wrote reports on other glaciers of Europe. Mercanton was a pioneer by publishing in 1916 a work on modern observation of glaciers entitled ''Vermessungen am Rhonegletscher 1874-1915''. From 1909 until his death, Mercanton was a member of the Glacier Commission of the Swiss Society of Natural Sciences, a commission he chaired for thirty-two years. He died in Lausanne on 25 February 1963.

Arctic expeditions

Mercanton was a member of expeditions to

Spitsbergen Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian language, Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipel ...

(1910),

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

(1912–1913) and

Jan Mayen Jan Mayen () is a Norway, Norwegian volcanic island in the Arctic Ocean with no permanent population. It is long (southwest-northeast) and in area, partly covered by glaciers (an area of around the Beerenberg volcano). It has two parts: la ...

(1921 and 1929). In 1921 he was part of a team which successfully climbed the

Beerenberg Beerenberg is a stratovolcano dominating the northeastern end of the Norwegian island of Jan Mayen. It is high and is the world's northernmost subaerial active volcano and the List of volcanoes in Norway, only active volcano in Norway. The vol ...

volcano on Jan Mayen island for the first time. Mercantonfjellet, a mountainous area on

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), previously known as Spitsbergen or Spitzbergen, is a Norway, Norwegian archipelago that lies at the convergence of the Arctic Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean. North of continental Europe, mainland Europe, it lies about midway be ...

, is named after him.

Footnotes

Bibliography

* 1876 births 1963 deaths Scientists from Lausanne Explorers of the Arctic Swiss explorers Swiss glaciologists Swiss meteorologists University of Lausanne alumni Academic staff of the University of Lausanne {{Glaciologist-stub

Biography

Arctic expeditions

See also

Footnotes

Bibliography