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Eric Rignot

{{short description|American scientist}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Eric Rignot

| image = Eric Rignot NASA JPL.jpg

| alt = Image of Dr. Eric Rignot

| caption = Dr. Eric Rignot

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1961|12|08|df=yes}}

| birth_place = France

| death_date =

| death_place =

| nationality = American, French

| alma_mater = École Centrale Paris
University of Paris VI Pierre et Marie Curie
University of Southern California

| other_names =

| known_for = Senior Research Scientist for the Radar Science and Engineering Section at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

| occupation = Professor, Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine

}}

Eric J. Rignot is the Donald Bren, Distinguished and Chancellor Professor of Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine,{{Cite web|url=http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=5467|title=Eric Rignot|publisher=University of California, Irvine|accessdate=March 10, 2009}} and a Senior Research Scientist for the Radar Science and Engineering Section at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.{{cite web|url=http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/sealevel_rignot_bio.html|title=Dr. Eric Rignot: Senior Research Scientist for the Radar Science and Engineering Section at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory|publisher=NASA}} 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

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,{{Cite web|url=https://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov/people/e_rignot|title={{!}}|website=scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov|language=en|access-date=2020-03-12}} where he took classes in physics, chemistry, math, and economics.{{Cite journal|last=Doctrow|first=Brian|date=2019-02-11|title=Profile of Eric Rignot|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences|language=en|volume=116|issue=8|pages=2791–2793|doi=10.1073/pnas.1821951116|pmid=30783019|pmc=6386653|issn=0027-8424|doi-access=free|bibcode=2019PNAS..116.2791D }} 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.

Work

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.{{cite web|url=https://www8.nationalacademies.org/cp/CommitteeView.aspx?key=49567|title=Committee Membership Information|publisher=National Academies|date=30 August 2013}}

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.{{cite web|url=http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/annexessannex-ii.html|title=Annex II: Contributors to the IPCC WGI Fourth Assessment Report|author=IPCC AR4|year=2007|access-date=2015-05-12|archive-date=2015-05-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150518092728/http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/annexessannex-ii.html|url-status=dead}}

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

Awards

Rignot has received several awards and honors during his career.{{cite web|url=http://scienceandtechnology.jpl.nasa.gov/people/e_rignot/|title=Dr. Eric J Rignot|publisher=NASA JPL}}{{cite web|url=http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=5467|title=Faculty Profile System University California Irvine|accessdate=12 May 2015}}

Publications

An overview of Rignot's research publications can be obtained via his [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Am3-eqEAAAAJ&hl=en Google Scholar profile] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150518210103/https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Am3-eqEAAAAJ&hl=en |date=2015-05-18 }}.

Based on study findings, he noted that the observed speed at which glaciers in Greenland are melting is considerably faster than he had anticipated.{{cite web | url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5220835 | title=Study: Greenland Ice Sheet Melting Faster Than Thought | work=NPR | date=17 February 2006 | accessdate=21 February 2014 | author=Harris, Richard}} 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.{{cite journal|last1=Rignot|first1=E.|last2=Mouginot|first2=J.|last3=Morlighem|first3=M.|last4=Seroussi|first4=H.|last5=Scheuchl|first5=B.|title=Widespread, rapid grounding line retreat of Pine Island, Thwaites, Smith, and Kohler glaciers, West Antarctica, from 1992 to 2011|journal=Geophysical Research Letters|date=28 May 2014|volume=41|issue=10|pages=3502–3509|doi=10.1002/2014GL060140|bibcode=2014GeoRL..41.3502R|url=https://escholarship.org/content/qt0wz826xt/qt0wz826xt.pdf?t=nu5md1}} Rignot said that these glaciers have "passed the point of no return."{{cite web | url=http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/may/nasa-uci-study-indicates-loss-of-west-antarctic-glaciers-appears-unstoppable/#.VFej3fTF_N4 | title=NASA-UCI Study Indicates Loss of West Antarctic Glaciers Appears Unstoppable | work=NASA | date=12 May 2014 | accessdate=3 November 2014}}

See also

References

{{Reflist}}

External links

  • [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdxpkxKGbXo Preview of HBO Vice: Our Rising Oceans with Eric Rignot] (2015)
  • [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p9uRxX95f4 AGU 2015: Eric Rignot - Ice Sheet Systems and Sea Level Change (Sea level rise)]
  • [https://icebridge.gsfc.nasa.gov/?page_id=1070 NASA Operation IceBridge]
  • [https://omg.jpl.nasa.gov/ NASA Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG)] - NASA

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Category:Living people

Category:American earth scientists

Category:University of California, Irvine faculty

Category:NASA people

Category:University of Southern California alumni

Category:Jet Propulsion Laboratory faculty

Category:American Antarctic scientists

Category:Marie Byrd Land explorers and scientists

Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences

Category:Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Category:Fellows of the American Geophysical Union

Category:1961 births