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Eric Rignot

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Eric Rignot
Image of Dr. Eric Rignot
Dr. Eric Rignot
Born (1961-12-08) 8 December 1961 (age 62)
France
NationalityAmerican, French
Alma materÉcole Centrale Paris
University of Paris VI Pierre et Marie Curie
University of Southern California
Occupation(s)Professor, Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine
Known forSenior Research Scientist for the Radar Science and Engineering Section at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Eric J. Rignot is the Donald Bren, Distinguished and Chancellor Professor of Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine,[1] and a Senior Research Scientist for the Radar Science and Engineering Section at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.[2] He studies the interaction of the polar ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica with global climate using a combination of satellite remote sensing (synthetic-aperture radar interferometry), airborne remote sensing (depth sounding radar, gravity), understanding of physical processes controlling glacier flow and ice melt in the ocean, field methods (multibeam echo sounding, CTD, AWS), and climate modeling (ISSM, MITgcm). He was elected at the National Academy of Sciences in 2018.

Education

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Rignot had elementary school in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, France where he was born in 1961 and completed his French Baccalaureat at Le Collège-Lycée Cévenol International in 1979. In 1985, Rignot studied an engineering degree at the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, Paris, France,[3] where he took classes in physics, chemistry, math, and economics.[4] After a year, he took Master of Science in astronomy at the University of Paris VI Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France. In 1987 and 1988 he took Master of Science in Electrical Engineering and Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering, consecutively, in the University of Southern California. It is also in the University of Southern California where he pursued Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical Engineering in 1991.[3]

Work

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He is a principal investigator on several NASA-funded projects to study the mass balance of the Greenland ice sheets and Antarctic ice sheets by using radar interferometry and other methods; the interactions of ice shelves with the ocean; and the dynamic retreat of Patagonian glaciers. In particular, Rignot's primary research interests are glaciology, climate change, radar remote sensing, ice sheet numerical modeling, interferometric synthetic-aperture radar, radio echo sounding, and ice-ocean interactions. His research group focuses on understanding the interactions of ice and climate, ice sheet mass balance, ice-ocean interactions in Greenland and Antarctica, and current/future contributions of ice sheets to sea level change.[5]

He was a member of NASA's Program for Arctic Regional Climate Assessment (PARCA) since its inception in 1993 to unravel for the first time the mass budget of the Greenland Ice Sheet. He participated in the first deployment of a NASA airborne survey of the Amundsen Sea Embayment sector of West Antarctica in Fall 2002 in collaboration with the Chilean Navy. He was the Science Lead for land ice of the NASA airborne mission Operation IceBridge which provide comprehensive and repeat surveys of Greenland and Antarctica for thickness, elevation, and gravity between 2009 and 2019. He was the Deputy Lead of NASA's Earth Venture Mission "Ocean Melting Greenland" (OMG) from 2015 to 2020 to survey the fjords of Greenland and the ocean temperature and salinity of the coastal waters around Greenland for the first time. Since 2007 until present and at least 2028, he led the NASA MEaSUREs program to generate Earth Science Data Record of Ice Motion and Grounding Lines in Antarctica.

In 2007 he contributed to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report WGI (Working Group I) which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in the name of all authors and co-authors, along with VP Al Gore.[6]

In 2014, he was a Lead Author of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report WGI (Working Group I).

Awards

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Rignot has received several awards and honors during his career.[7][8]

Publications

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An overview of Rignot's research publications can be obtained via his Google Scholar profile Archived 2015-05-18 at the Wayback Machine.

Based on study findings, he noted that the observed speed at which glaciers in Greenland are melting is considerably faster than he had anticipated.[13] In 2014 Rignot was the lead author on a widely publicized study which based on grounding line retreat, found that the melting of glaciers in the Amundsen Sea appears to be unstoppable.[14] Rignot said that these glaciers have "passed the point of no return."[15]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Eric Rignot". University of California, Irvine. Retrieved March 10, 2009.
  2. ^ "Dr. Eric Rignot: Senior Research Scientist for the Radar Science and Engineering Section at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory". NASA.
  3. ^ a b "|". scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2020-03-12.
  4. ^ Doctrow, Brian (2019-02-11). "Profile of Eric Rignot". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 116 (8): 2791–2793. Bibcode:2019PNAS..116.2791D. doi:10.1073/pnas.1821951116. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 6386653. PMID 30783019.
  5. ^ "Committee Membership Information". National Academies. 30 August 2013.
  6. ^ IPCC AR4 (2007). "Annex II: Contributors to the IPCC WGI Fourth Assessment Report". Archived from the original on 2015-05-18. Retrieved 2015-05-12.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  7. ^ "Dr. Eric J Rignot". NASA JPL.
  8. ^ "Faculty Profile System University California Irvine". Retrieved 12 May 2015.
  9. ^ "National Academy of Sciences, USA 2018".
  10. ^ "Louis Agassiz Medal European Geophysical Union, 2017".
  11. ^ "American Geophysical Union 2013 Fellow". American Geophysical Union. 2013.
  12. ^ "Science and Technology: The Lew Allen Award for Excellence Recipients". NASA JPL. Archived from the original on 18 May 2015. Retrieved 12 May 2015.
  13. ^ Harris, Richard (17 February 2006). "Study: Greenland Ice Sheet Melting Faster Than Thought". NPR. Retrieved 21 February 2014.
  14. ^ Rignot, E.; Mouginot, J.; Morlighem, M.; Seroussi, H.; Scheuchl, B. (28 May 2014). "Widespread, rapid grounding line retreat of Pine Island, Thwaites, Smith, and Kohler glaciers, West Antarctica, from 1992 to 2011" (PDF). Geophysical Research Letters. 41 (10): 3502–3509. Bibcode:2014GeoRL..41.3502R. doi:10.1002/2014GL060140.
  15. ^ "NASA-UCI Study Indicates Loss of West Antarctic Glaciers Appears Unstoppable". NASA. 12 May 2014. Retrieved 3 November 2014.
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