Catherine Ritz is a French

Antarctic The Antarctic ( or , American English also or ; commonly ) is a polar region around Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica, the Kerguelen Plateau and o ...

researcher, best known for her work on

ice sheets In glaciology, an ice sheet, also known as a continental glacier, is a mass of glacial ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than . The only current ice sheets are in Antarctica and Greenland; during the Last Glacial Period at Las ...

and their impact on

sea level rise Globally, sea levels are rising due to human-caused climate change. Between 1901 and 2018, the globally averaged sea level rose by , or 1–2 mm per year on average.IPCC, 2019Summary for Policymakers InIPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cry ...

Early life and education

Catherine Ritz received her master's degree ''Maîtrise de Physique'' in physics in France in 1975. She conducted her PhD research leading toward the degree ''Thèse de 3ème cycle'' in 1980 from the University of Grenoble, and she received her ''Thèse de Doctorat d’Etat'' in 1992.

Career and impact

Ritz is a climatologist and geographer known especially for her contributions to climate change research. She is a Senior Researcher for France's National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) at the Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Geophysique de l’Environnement, and also is affiliated with the

Université Grenoble Alpes The Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA, French: meaning "''Grenoble Alps University''") is a public research university in Grenoble, France. Founded in 1339, it is the third largest university in France with about 60,000 students and over 3,000 resea ...

. Her research involves modeling polar ice cap evolution; using 3D models to examine changes in the ice sheets and ice shelves of Antarctica and Greenland; ice drilling; and investigation of sub-glacial isostasy. She has published over 70 articles. Among Ritz's more high-profile contributions is an article published in the journal ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans ar ...

'' in December 2015. The article, based on research led by Ritz and Tamsin Edwards from

The Open University The Open University (OU) is a British Public university, public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by List of universities in the United Kingdom by enrolment, number of students. The majority of the OU's underg ...

, created models based on satellite data to examine the potential impact of

Antarctic sea ice Antarctic sea ice is the sea ice of the Southern Ocean. It extends from the far north in the winter and retreats to almost the coastline every summer, getting closer and closer to the coastline every year due to sea ice melting. Sea ice is froze ...

collapse on global sea levels. Using more comprehensive methods than those used in previous studies, the team found that the collapse of

Antarctic ice sheet The Antarctic ice sheet is one of the two polar ice caps of Earth. It covers about 98% of the Antarctic continent and is the largest single mass of ice on Earth, with an average thickness of over 2 kilometers. It covers an area of almost a ...

s would have serious consequences for sea level rise (up to a half-meter by 2100 in a high-emissions scenario), but that the effects likely would not be as dramatic as other high-profile studies had predicted. The team found that the most likely outcome is a sea level rise 10 cm by 2100, assuming that greenhouse gases rise at a medium to high rate, and that it will be extremely unlikely for a rise of greater than 30 cm to occur. Ritz also plays a prominent role in international efforts to monitor Antarctic ice and understand climate change. She is Chair of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) Ice Sheet Mass Balance and Sea Level Expert Group; member of the

SCAR A scar (or scar tissue) is an area of fibrous tissue that replaces normal skin after an injury. Scars result from the biological process of wound repair in the skin, as well as in other organs, and tissues of the body. Thus, scarring is a n ...

Antarctic Climate Change in the 21st Century Scientific Research Programme; and member of the International Advisory Board of Ice Sheet Modellers to the BRITICE-CHRONO team, which is studying marine-influenced ice sheet decay of the British-Irish ice sheet Rirz was awarded the

Seligman Crystal The Seligman Crystal is an award of the International Glaciological Society. The prize is "awarded from time to time to one who has made an outstanding scientific contribution to glaciology so that the subject is now enriched" and named after Gera ...

by the

International Glaciological Society The International Glaciological Society (IGS) was founded in 1936 to provide a focus for individuals interested in glaciology, practical and scientific aspects of snow and ice. It was originally known as the "Association for the Study of Snow a ...

in 2020 for her work on ice sheet modelling and paleoclimate research.

Selected writings

*Ritz, Catherine, Vincent Rommelaere, and Christophe Dumas. "Modeling the evolution of Antarctic ice sheet over the last 420,000 years: Implications for altitude changes in the Vostok region." Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 106.D23 (2001): 31943-31964. *Augustin, Laurent, Carlo Barbante, Piers RF Barnes, Jean Marc Barnola, Matthias Bigler, Emiliano Castellano, Olivier Cattani, Catherin Ritz. "Eight glacial cycles from an Antarctic ice core." Nature 429, no. 6992 (2004): 623-628. *Lemieux-Dudon, Bénédicte, Eric Blayo, Jean-Robert Petit, Claire Waelbroeck, Anders Svensson, Catherine Ritz, Jean-Marc Barnola, Bianca Maria Narcisi, and Frédéric Parrenin. "Consistent dating for Antarctic and Greenland ice cores." Quaternary Science Reviews 29, no. 1 (2010): 8-20. *Parrenin, F., Remy, F., Ritz, C., Siegert, M. J., & Jouzel, J. (2004). New modeling of the Vostok ice flow line and implication for the glaciological chronology of the Vostok ice core. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 109(D20).

References

External links

* http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/885.htm * https://www.francebleu.fr/emissions/les-portraits-d-isere/portrait-d-isere-catherine-ritz * http://ici.radio-canada.ca/radio/lumiere/archives/archives2003/octobre2003.html * http://lgge.osug.fr/article134.html?lang=fr {{DEFAULTSORT:Ritz, Catherine French women scientists Year of birth missing (living people) Living people French climatologists Women climatologists Grenoble Alpes University alumni French Antarctic scientists Women Antarctic scientists French glaciologists