A talented young ice2sea scientist has won recognition for his outstanding contributions to the study of Greenland’s ice sheet.
Dr Xavier Fettweis will receive the 2013 Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Young Scientists today (Wednesday) during a ceremony at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly.
He is just one of four people awarded the prize this year, after a rigorous selection process recognised his work helping to explain how Greenland’s ice sheet changes with snowfall, and ice and snow melt.
The EGU citation reads: “The 2013 Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Young Scientists is awarded to Xavier Fettweis for fundamental contributions in understanding and quantifying the current and future surface mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet.”
Each area of science at the EGU has a Division Committee which oversees its divisional awards and can nominate chosen scientists to the even more prestigious Union level.
Dr Fettweis’ success is all the better as it is the first time in the relatively short history of the award that his area, the Cryospheric Sciences Division, has had a candidate be recognized at the Union level.
Dr Hilmar Gudmundsson, the outgoing Cryospheric Sciences Division President for the EGU says, “It is a feather in a young scientist’s cap for sure. It is in recognition for outstanding work by a young scientist and is very good for them and will be something that will help them in their career. It is the first time for our division that this has happened so it is very positive for us.”
Since the start of his PhD in 2001 the 35-year-old scientist has adapted and improved a regional climate model, known as MAR, to study how Greenland’s ice sheet reacts to melt and snowfall. He used the model and compared it with microwave satellite data to improve melt detection. That helped him show that the current melt rates (2007-2012) are unprecedented in the last 50 years due mainly to changes in the general atmospheric circulation in summer.
Dr Fettweiss’ work has in recent years become a recognised reference for explaining the current surface changes over the Greenland ice sheet, and is now used in many of the related studies of this sheet. Finally his future projections have been chosen for use in the major European funded project ice2sea for driving ice sheet models.
Dr Fettweis says, “It is clearly a great honour for me to get this unexpected award. This is a major recognition of my research about the Greenland ice sheet and in particular of the regional climate model MAR developed by Hubert Gallée. During the previous EGUs, I thought that getting an award was reserved only for the elite and getting this one this year was a great surprise for me.”
Professor Michiel van den Broeke worked with Dr Fettweis during his visit to the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Institute at Utrecht University. He says, “Xavier worked hard to make projections of Greenland climate with the regional model MAR to provide the all-important forcing for the ice sheet models in ice2sea. During that period he stayed at our institute for a year. He is very pleasant to work with and he is extremely efficient and helpful. This medal is a fitting acknowledgement of those important qualities.”
David Vaughan, head of the ice2sea programme, says, “I’m very pleased that the EGU has chosen to award this important honour to Xavier. He has been a part of ice2sea since the beginning and his research into the climate of Greenland has been a foundation for much of the science we have done. Ice2sea always had the aim to train and develop a new generation of scientists with the skills and scientific ambition to take our area of science forward. Xavier has taken every opportunity ice2sea could to grow as a scientist, and to develop his skills and a strong network of collaborators across a range of scientific disciplines. He fully deserves to be recognised for his achievement and commitment.”
ENDS
To request an interview with Dr Xavier Fettweis or Professor David Vaughan contact Paul B Holland, communications manager at the British Antarctic Survey. Email: paul.b.holland@bas.ac.uk; Tel +44 (0) 1223 226221.
Notes for Editors
Ice2sea brings together the EU’s scientific and operational expertise from 24 leading institutions across Europe and beyond. Improved projections of the contribution of ice to sea-level rise produced by this major programme funded by the European Commission’s Framework 7 Programme (grant agreement 226375) will inform the fifth IPCC report (due in 2013). In 2007, the fourth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report highlighted ice-sheets as the most significant remaining uncertainty in projections of sea-level rise.
The European Geosciences Union (EGU) is Europe’s premier geosciences union, dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in the Earth, planetary, and space sciences for the benefit of humanity, worldwide. It is a non-profit interdisciplinary learned association of scientists founded in 2002. The EGU has a current portfolio of 14 diverse scientific journals, which use an innovative open-access format, and organises a number of topical meetings, and education and outreach activities. Its annual General Assembly is the largest and most prominent European geosciences event, attracting over 10,000 scientists from all over the world. The meeting’s sessions cover a wide range of topics, including volcanology, planetary exploration, the Earth’s internal structure and atmosphere, climate, energy, and resources.
The Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Young Scientists (formerly Outstanding Young Scientist Award) recognizes scientific achievements in any field of the Geosciences, made by a young scientist. From 2011 onward the EGU Council renamed the former Outstanding Young Scientist Award in honour of Arne Richter, the former Executive Secretary of the EGU, for his never-ending efforts to promote young scientists.
