Isabella Velicogna

About

Isabella Velicogna is a professor whose research focuses on the study of terrestrial hydrological cycles, vegetation response to water supply changes, and the ongoing mass loss in the Polar Regions. Her work involves utilizing remote sensing data, ground observations, and climate model outputs to analyze water storage changes from GRACE, soil moisture from SMAP, MODIS, AMSR, and GOME-2, as well as vegetation indices from MODIS. She is also engaged in 3-D numerical modeling of the Glacial Isostatic Adjustment of the Earth. Her research aims to understand the dynamics of ice sheet mass balance, glacier and ice cap mass balance, and their implications for sea level rise. Velicogna's contributions include advancing the understanding of Earth's water and ice systems through innovative use of satellite data and modeling techniques, thereby providing critical insights into climate change impacts and Earth's evolving cryosphere.

Research topics

• Oceanography
• Geology
• Environmental science
• Climatology
• Geography
• Physical geography
• Earth science
• Physics
• Atmospheric sciences
• Geomorphology

Selected publications

• The Paris Climate Agreement and future sea-level rise from Antarctica

  Nature · 2021 · 566 citations

  PublisherDOI

• Continuity of Ice Sheet Mass Loss in Greenland and Antarctica From the GRACE and GRACE Follow‐On Missions

  Geophysical Research Letters · 2020 · 322 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract We examine data continuity between the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and GRACE Follow‐On (FO) missions over Greenland and Antarctica using independent data from the mass budget method, which calculates the difference between ice sheet surface mass balance and ice discharge at the periphery. For both ice sheets, we find consistent GRACE/GRACE‐FO time series across the data gap, at the continental and regional scales, and the data gap is confidently filled with mass budg…

  DOI

• Mass balance of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets from 1992 to 2020

  Earth system science data · 2023-04-20 · 285 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  Abstract. Ice losses from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have accelerated since the 1990s, accounting for a significant increase in the global mean sea level. Here, we present a new 29-year record of ice sheet mass balance from 1992 to 2020 from the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise (IMBIE). We compare and combine 50 independent estimates of ice sheet mass balance derived from satellite observations of temporal changes in ice sheet flow, in ice sheet volume, and in Earth's…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Ocean forcing drives glacier retreat in Greenland

  Science Advances · 2021-01-01 · 236 citations

  articleOpen access

  The retreat and acceleration of Greenland glaciers since the mid-1990s have been attributed to the enhanced intrusion of warm Atlantic Waters (AW) into fjords, but this assertion has not been quantitatively tested on a Greenland-wide basis or included in models. Here, we investigate how AW influenced retreat at 226 marine-terminating glaciers using ocean modeling, remote sensing, and in situ observations. We identify 74 glaciers in deep fjords with AW controlling 49% of the mass loss that retrea…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Community estimate of global glacier mass changes from 2000 to 2023

  Nature · 2025-02-19 · 142 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Glaciers are indicators of ongoing anthropogenic climate change 1 . Their melting leads to increased local geohazards 2 , and impacts marine 3 and terrestrial 4,5 ecosystems, regional freshwater resources 6 , and both global water and energy cycles 7,8 . Together with the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, glaciers are essential drivers of present 9,10 and future 11–13 sea-level rise. Previous assessments of global glacier mass changes have been hampered by spatial and temporal limitat…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Calculation of Antarctic Gravity Field from GRACE Satellite Data and Comparison with Independent Measurements

  NSF · $205k · 2004–2008

• Collaborative Research: Calculation of Antarctic Gravity Field from GRACE Satellite Data and Comparison with Independent Measurements

  NSF · $57k · 2008–2009

Frequent coauthors

• Eric Rignot

  University of California, Irvine

  161 shared

• John Wahr

  94 shared

• Tyler Sutterley

  Seattle University

  93 shared

• M. R. van den Broeke

  Utrecht University

  73 shared

• Yara Mohajerani

  Irvine University

  61 shared

• J. Mouginot

  Institut polytechnique de Grenoble

  55 shared

• P. Kishore

  45 shared

• John S. Kimball

  39 shared

Labs

• Isabella Velicogna's LabPI

  Research on terrestrial hydrological cycles, vegetation response to water supply changes, mass loss in Polar Regions, and glacial isostatic adjustment of the Earth.

Similar researchers at University of California, Irvine

• Alex B Guentherh-131
• Amir Aghakouchakh-114