Frank Pattyn

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Frank Pattyn is a glaciologist and ice-sheet modeller at the Laboratoire de Glaciologie of the Université libre de Bruxelles ULB. He teaches geomorphology, glaciology and climatology in Geography, Geology and Environmental Sciences at the ULB.

His research focuses on improving projections of the contribution of large ice sheets (especially Antarctica) to future sea-level rise. He developed a number of ice-sheet models, as well as the Blatter-Pattyn ice flow approximation. He is actively involved in Ice-Sheet Model Intercomparison Projects (ISMIPs), of which the most important one is ISMIP6 that produced sea-level projections for IPCC AR6. He lead initatives such as ISMIP-HOM, MISMIP, MISMIP3D, and ABUMIP. He took part in a dozen expeditions to Antarctica to study the interaction of glaciers and ice sheets with subglacial water and the ocean. He is currently Chairman of the Belgian National Committee on Antarctic Research and Belgian delegate to SCAR. Frank Pattyn is the 2018 recipient of the EGU Agassiz medal.

ULB (2021)

Project links

OCEAN-ICE: Ocean-Cryosphere Exchanges in ANtarctica: Impacts on Climate and the Earth System (Horizon Europe)
PROTECT: Projecting sea-level rise: from ice sheets to local implications (EU H2020)
PARAMOUR: Decadal Predictability and vAriability of polar climate: the Role of AtMosphere- Ocean-cryosphere mUltiscale inteRactions (EOS - FWO/FNRS)
MIMO: Monitoring ice shelf melt where Ice Meets Ocean (BELSPO)
BE-OI: Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice (EU H2020)
IceCon: Constraining Ice Mass Change in Antarctica. Belgian Science Policy Office
The Tweeting Ice Shelf: Dynamics of the Roi Baudouin ice shelf
ice2sea MISMIP3D: Marine Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project: benchmark experiments for grounding line migration for planview models
MISMIP: Marine Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project: benchmark experiments for grounding line migration
ISMIP-HOM: Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project: benchmark experiments for Higher-Order ice sheet Models
GRANTISM: run a simple, but completely dynamic, model of the Greenland & Antarctic ice sheet yourself using MS Excel. Recently updated to a Javascript version by M. O'Leary, J-ISM

Contact

Prof. dr. Frank Pattyn
Laboratoire de Glaciologie
Département Géosciences, Environnement, Société (DGES)

Postal address
Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), CP 160/03
Avenue F.D. Roosevelt, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium
email: Frank.Pattyn@ulb.be
Tel: +32 (0)2 650 28 46 / +32 (0)2 650 22 27 (secr.)

Office
Campus Solbosch, building D
Avenue A. Depage 30, 1050 Brussels
4th floor, office S.DC4.118