Hélène Seroussi

Research Interests

Glaciology; ice sheet modeling and ice sheet contribution to sea level; ice-ocean interactions; climate science; data assimilation and inverse modeling in geosciences

Education

• PhD, Mechanical Engineering, Ecole Centrale Paris, France 2011
• MS, Mechanical Engineering, Ecole Centrale Paris, France 2008
• MS, Structural Dynamics and Coupled Systems, Ecole Centrale Paris, France 2008

Awards

• Rising Star of Science Award, Research.com, 2022
  
• American Geophysical Union, Cryosphere Early Career Award, 2020
• NASA Early Career Public Achievement Medal, 2019

Professional Activities

• Member, NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellowship Program Steering Committee, 2020–present
• Member, Editorial Board of Journal of Geophysical Research-Earth Surface, 2019–present
• Member, CliC (Climate and Cryosphere) Scientific Steering Committee, 2019–present

Research Projects

• Sea-level contribution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet with improved representation of grounding zone dynamics and ocean conditions

  Sea-level contribution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet with improved representation of grounding zone dynamics and ocean conditions

  The mass loss of glaciers and ice sheets will dominate the sea-level budget in the coming century, but current projections of ice loss are affected by uncertainties due to a lack of observations at the model boundaries, especially the ocean. In this project, we will use novel understanding and observations of ice-ocean physics of grounding zone areas, high-resolution ocean modeling in ice shelf cavities, and a coupled ocean-ice-sheet (MITgcm-ISSM) model constrained by satellite observations to improve projections of sea-level change from key regions of West and East Antarctica over the next 10–50 years. Based on prior work, we expect the improved modeling of grounding zone dynamics and ocean circulation to produce higher projections of mass loss, possibly by a factor two. This project is funded by a grant from the NASA Sea-Level Change Team to provide up-to-date, improved, observation-constrained, projections of sea-level change from Antarctica.

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• Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project (ISMIP7) for CMIP7

  Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project (ISMIP7) for CMIP7

  The scientific goal of the Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project (ISMIP7), as tasked by the international effort managing climate change projection, CMIP7, is to deliver actionable sea-level contributions from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets as part of the new "Climate Services" for the IPCC 7th Assessment Report (AR7), and increase understanding of ice sheet-climate interactions. This project will accomplish these objectives using an ensemble of standalone ice sheet models driven by climate forcing from CMIP climate models under selected future climate scenarios. Within this framework, we focus on the development of a protocol for Antarctic ice shelf fracture and collapse, or Antarctic "breakage," the design of protocol and analysis of the Antarctic ice sheet ensemble, and the support of the community participating in these activities. This project is funded by a grant from the Heising-Simons Foundation.

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• Center for Ice-sheet and Sea-level Predictions (CISP) Project

  Center for Ice-sheet and Sea-level Predictions (CISP) Project

  Current ice flow models are limited by the processes they capture and the observations they use to initialize and constrain the ice sheet initial state. This project will design and use the next generation data-driven ice sheet models to improve projections of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets evolution. We will resolve the impact of key dynamic processes using recent advances in high-resolution reconstructions of subtle changes in inland ice elevation and speed over the past three decades and improve our understanding of interactions between models of ice sheet and solid Earth. This project is funded by a grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation in Denmark as part of their Prediction of Climate Change and Effect of Mitigating Solutions program.

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Selected Publications

• ISMIP6 Antarctica: a multi-model ensemble of the Antarctic ice sheet evolution over the 21st century, H. Seroussi, S. Nowicki, A.J. Payne, H. Goelzer, W.H. Lipscomb, A. Abe-Ouchi, C. Agosta, T. Albrecht, X. Asay-Davis, A. Barthel, R. Calov, R. Cullather, et al., The Cryosphere, 14:3033–3070, 2020.
• Present day Jakobshavn Isbræ close to the Holocene minimum extent, K. Kajanto, H. Seroussi, B. de Fleurian, and K.H. Nisancioglu, Quaternary Sci. Rev., 246(106492), 2020.
• History, mass loss, structure, and dynamic behavior of the Antarctic ice sheet, R.E. Bell and H. Seroussi, Science, 367(6484):1321–1325, 2020.
• Marine ice sheet instability amplifies and skews uncertainty in projections of future sea-level rise, A.A. Robel, H. Seroussi, and G.H. Roe, PNAS, 2019.
• Influence of a West Antarctic mantle plume on ice sheet basal conditions, H. Seroussi, E.R. Ivins, D.A. Wiens, and J. Bondzio, J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth, 122:7127–7155, 2017.
• Continued retreat of Thwaites Glacier, West Antarctica, controlled by bed topography and ocean circulation, H. Seroussi, Y. Nakayama, E. Larour, D. Menemenlis, M. Morlighem, E. Rignot, and A. Khazendar, Geophys. Res. Lett., 44:6191–6199, 2017. 2017GL072910.

News

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Jan 19, 2026

Dartmouth Engineering Professor Hélène Seroussi Receives Presidential Early Career Award
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