Ghislain Picard

Ghislain Picard

Current position

Full Professor at IGE - OSUG - UGA

Contact Details

Institut des Géosciences de l'Environnement
54, rue Molière
38402 - Saint Martin d'Hères
France
Tel: +33 4 76 82 42 45
Email: ghislain.picard@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr
Github: ghislainp
Twitter: gsnowph

Research topics

My research interest is on snow in the polar regions. Not only how much snow accumulates on the surface of the ice-sheets is interesting, but also how the snow physical properties are evolving. The reason is because snow at the surface is continuously changing, either due to melt, metamorphisms or wind transport on short time scale (hour to season) or due to climate change on longer scales (years). These changes affect the surface energy budget, resulting in atmospheric warming or cooling, and after a more or less complex series of ping-ponged back and forth in the climate system, this affects the snowpack back. Often, a small initial perturbation in the snow can be amplified and leads to large climatic impacts, far away from the polar regions. This is why snow is important in the climate system, and why there is still a lot to be discovered.

In my research, I'm using remote sensing observations, in the microwave, optical and thermal ranges. I have developed several radiative transfer models to better exploit the satellite observations and to refine the surface radiative budget estimation. With Laurent Arnaud, we develop innovative instruments to measure the physical properties of the snow. Several 'snow' stations have been deployed across East Antarctica to monitor snow surface evolution.

News

D17 station
Photo: Spectral albedo measurements at D17 in Adelie's land, East Antarctica.

Ongoing and past projects

Students and post-doc

Post-doc: PhD: Master: