Etienne BERTHIER CNRS Senior scientist at LEGOS Team ECHOS 14 av. Ed. Belin - 31400 - Toulouse etienne.berthieruniv-tlse3.fr

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Highligths: recent papers/projects/field trips

Rapid global glacier decline measured from Space The GlaMBIE team, Nature, 2025

Glacier retreat and permafrost thaw triggered the castrophic glacier outburst flood in Sikkim (October 2023) Sattar, Cook et al., Science, 2025

Exceptional thinning of Mont-Blanc glaciers during glaciological year 2021/2022 Berthier, Vincent, Six, Journal of Glaciology, 2023

What fraction of the Earth's glacier mass disappeared from 2000 to 2019? Answer in French in: Hugonnet, Millan et al., La Météorologie, 2023 Th entire issue is available here

Melting away: Glacier disappearance faster than previously thought Rounce et al., Science, 5 January 2023 More info on twitter

Publication of the Unesco report, jointly with ETH-Zurich. World heritage glaciers: sentinels of climate change. A call for drastic reduction in greenhouse gazes emission ahead of COP72

PHD opportunity: Mass losses of the polar ice sheets, Antarctica and Greenland. New constraints from stereoscopic imagery and laser altimetry. Applications opened until 11 June. The selected candidate will then apply in late June to a fellowship from the doctoral school (sdu2e). More info here and here

No good news on the glacier front More details in this thread on twitter "Glaciers are sending a clear message: It's up to us to step up and halt the rise in global temperatures" Garry Clarke, UBC professor

A massive rock avalanche caused the 7 February 2021 catastrophic flood in India More details on the blog multitemp

The imbalance and retreat of the Kaskawulsh Glacier (Yukon Territory, Canada) Young & al, Journal of Glaciology, January 2021

Two decades of glacier mass loss along the Andes Dussaillant & al, Nature Geoscience, September 2019 A free read-only version is available here

An intriguing 100-depression after a massive rock avalanche on Siachen Glacier Berthier & Brun, Journal of Glaciology, May 2019

7 decades of glacier change at Eyjafjallajökull ice cap Belart et al., Journal of Glaciology, April 2019

Himalayan and (some) other Asian glaciers put the brakes on Dehecq et al., Nature Geoscience, December 2018 See the ESA press release and BBC coverage

Spectacular collapse of two glaciers over the Tibetan Plateau Kääb et al., Nature Geoscience, February 2018

High spatial variability of glacier mass change in High Mountain Asia Brun et al., Nature Geoscience, Online publication 7 August 2017

The mascot of our observatory Bompi is back from a 5-week field trip in Himalaya. He details (in French) all the measurements performed to take the pulse of glaciers in the Everest area.

The climate drivers of glacier wastage at Kerguelen have been explored using field observations, remote sensing data and modelling. After a period of stability between 1950 and 1960, glaciers experienced a massive reduction mainly explained by a drought due to man-made atmospheric warming and the ozone hole Favier et al., Scientific Reports, 2016

Unlocking archives using high resolution Pleiades images Here, a report in French to understand how we used high resolution Pléiades topography and images to document the state of remote glaciers in the Canadian Arctic. They melt 5 to 6 faster now than during the last 5-6 decades. Papasodoro et al., The Cryosphere, 2015

From 11 to 17 octobre, I will be one of the scientists onboard the "Train du Climat". See you at platform 9 3/4

Pléiades DEM for Glaciology Berthier et al., The Cryosphere, 2014 French Side of the Mont-Blanc summit. Virtual 3D view created from Pléiades stereo-images (19 August 2012)

Rapid Mass losses in the North Antarctic Peninsula Scambos et al., The Cryosphere, 2014 See also NSIDC highlight Photo: Ice terrasses in 2004. 2 years only after the collapse of the Larsen-B ice shelf, the glacier thinned already by 100 m!

Motion of the Mer de Glace between summer 2012 and 2013 from shaded relief images of the Pléiades DEMs (clic on the image to open a higher resolution version)

Contrasted glacier mass balances in the Pamir - Karakorum - Himalaya, 1999-2011 Gardelle et al., The Cryosphere, 2013 Paper downloaded >28000 times!

Reconciled glacier contribution to sea-level rise, 2003-2009 Gardner et al., Science, 2013

Contribution of Icelandic ice caps to sea-level rise Björnsson et al., GRL, 2013

Fieldwork in Patagonia - March 2013

Glacier mass change in the Himalaya Kääb et al., Nature, 2012

High and Unabated Mass loss 10 year after ice shelf collapse (Antarctic Peninsula) Berthier et al., GRL, 2012

Le comportement hors norme des glaciers du Karakorum Gardelle et al., Nature Geosci., 2012

The Korona et al., 2009 paper presenting the SPIRIT IPY project was nominated paper of the year 2009 by the ISPRS.

Improved estimate of Alaskan glacier contribution to sea level rise

23 years evolution at Jakobshavn Isbrae (low resolution & high resolution, 3 Mo)

Kerguelen : Glacier retreat since 1963