Professor Andrew Shepherd

Head Of Department

Department: Geography and Environmental Sciences

I am Head of the Department of Geography and Environment at Northumbria, Director of the NERC , Principal Scientific Advisor to the European Space Agency's satellite mission, co-leader of the ESA-NASA , and a contributing author to assessment reports.

I use satellites to study Earth's climate, and my main contributions to science have involved developing remote observations of the cryosphere - especially using radar altimetry. I have led field campaigns in Europe, Africa, the Arctic, and in Antarctica to calibrate and validate satellite sensors.

I studied in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester, and I have held academic posts at University College London, and the Universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Leeds.

Email Andrew

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

My research focusses on measuring changes of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, on understanding their interaction with the global climate system, and on establishing their contribution to global sea level rise. I also have a keen interest in the calibration and validation of satellite systems, and in the development of novel satellite sensors to tackle problems in geophysical research. To do this, I work closely with technical experts in space agencies and in the space industrial sector, with scientific collaborators in glaciology, meteorology, oceanography, and ice sheet modelling, and with government agencies.

Key Publications

Detecting sea ice leads and floes in the Northwest Passage using CryoSat-2, Swiggs, A., Lawrence, I., Ridout, A., Shepherd, A. 1 Jan 2025, In: IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing
A Simulation of Snow on Antarctic Sea Ice Based on Satellite Data and Climate Reanalyses, Lawrence, I., Ridout, A., Shepherd, A., Tilling, R. 1 Jan 2024, In: Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans
Greenland Ice Sheet Elevation Change From CryoSat‐2 and ICESat‐2, Ravinder, N., Shepherd, A., Otosaka, I., Slater, T., Muir, A., Gilbert, L. 28 Dec 2024, In: Geophysical Research Letters
Publisher Correction: Remotely sensing potential climate change tipping points across scales, Lenton, T., Abrams, J., Bartsch, A., Bathiany, S., Boulton, C., Buxton, J., Conversi, A., Cunliffe, A., Hebden, S., Lavergne, T., Poulter, B., Shepherd, A., Smith, T., Swingedouw, D., Winkelmann, R., Boers, N. 1 Mar 2024, In: Nature Communications
Remotely sensing potential climate change tipping points across scales, Lenton, T., Abrams, J., Bartsch, A., Bathiany, S., Boulton, C., Buxton, J., Conversi, A., Cunliffe, A., Hebden, S., Lavergne, T., Poulter, B., Shepherd, A., Smith, T., Swingedouw, D., Winkelmann, R., Boers, N. 6 Jan 2024, In: Nature Communications
The effect of landfast sea ice buttressing on ice dynamic speedup in the Larsen B embayment, Antarctica, Surawy-Stepney, T., Hogg, A., Cornford, S., Wallis, B., Davison, B., Selley, H., Slater, R., Lie, E., Jakob, L., Ridout, A., Gourmelen, N., Freer, B., Wilson, S., Shepherd, A. 4 Mar 2024, In: The Cryosphere
Heat stored in the Earth system 1960-2020: where does the energy go?, Von Schuckmann, K., Minière, A., Gues, F., Cuesta-Valero, F., Kirchengast, G., Adusumilli, S., Straneo, F., Ablain, M., Allan, R., Barker, P., Beltrami, H., Blazquez, A., Boyer, T., Cheng, L., Church, J., Desbruyeres, D., Dolman, H., Domingues, C., García-García, A., Giglio, D., Gilson, J., Gorfer, M., Haimberger, L., Hakuba, M., Hendricks, S., Hosoda, S., Johnson, G., Killick, R., King, B., Kolodziejczyk, N., Korosov, A., Krinner, G., Kuusela, M., Landerer, F., Langer, M., Lavergne, T., Lawrence, I., Li, Y., Lyman, J., Marti, F., Marzeion, B., Mayer, M., MacDougall, A., McDougall, T., Monselesan, D., Nitzbon, J., Otosaka, I., Peng, J., Purkey, S., Roemmich, D., Sato, K., Sato, K., Savita, A., Schweiger, A., Shepherd, A., Seneviratne, S., Simons, L., Slater, D., Slater, T., Steiner, A., Suga, T., Szekely, T., Thiery, W., Timmermans, M., Vanderkelen, I., Wjiffels, S., Wu, T., Zemp, M. 17 Apr 2023, In: Earth System Science Data
Insights into the vulnerability of Antarctic glaciers from the ISMIP6 ice sheet model ensemble and associated uncertainty, Seroussi, H., Verjans, V., Nowicki, S., Payne, A., Goelzer, H., Lipscomb, W., Abe-Ouchi, A., Agosta, C., Albrecht, T., Asay-Davis, X., Barthel, A., Calov, R., Cullather, R., Dumas, C., Galton-Fenzi, B., Gladstone, R., Golledge, N., Gregory, J., Greve, R., Hattermann, T., Hoffman, M., Humbert, A., Huybrechts, P., Jourdain, N., Kleiner, T., Larour, E., Leguy, G., Lowry, D., Little, C., Morlighem, M., Pattyn, F., Pelle, T., Price, S., Quiquet, A., Reese, R., Schlegel, N., Shepherd, A., Simon, E., Smith, R., Straneo, F., Sun, S., Trusel, L., Van Breedam, J., Van Katwyk, P., van de Wal, R., Winkelmann, R., Zhao, C., Zhang, T., Zwinger, T. 7 Dec 2023, In: Cryosphere
Mapping the extent of giant Antarctic icebergs with deep learning, Braakmann-Folgmann, A., Shepherd, A., Hogg, D., Redmond, E. 9 Nov 2023, In: Cryosphere
Mass balance of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets from 1992 to 2020, Otosaka, I., Shepherd, A., Ivins, E., Schlegel, N., Amory, C., Van Den Broeke, M., Horwath, M., Joughin, I., King, M., Krinner, G., Nowicki, S., Payne, A., Rignot, E., Scambos, T., Simon, K., Smith, B., Sørensen, L., Velicogna, I., Whitehouse, P., Geruo, A., Agosta, C., Ahlstrøm, A., Blazquez, A., Colgan, W., Engdahl, M., Fettweis, X., Forsberg, R., Gallée, H., Gardner, A., Gilbert, L., Gourmelen, N., Groh, A., Gunter, B., Harig, C., Helm, V., Khan, S., Kittel, C., Konrad, H., Langen, P., Lecavalier, B., Liang, C., Loomis, B., McMillan, M., Melini, D., Mernild, S., Mottram, R., Mouginot, J., Nilsson, J., Noël, B., Pattle, M., Peltier, W., Pie, N., Roca, M., Sasgen, I., Save, H., Seo, K., Scheuchl, B., Schrama, E., Schröder, L., Simonsen, S., Slater, T., Spada, G., Sutterley, T., Vishwakarma, B., Van Wessem, J., Wiese, D., Van Der Wal, W., Wouters, B. 20 Apr 2023, In: Earth System Science Data

PGR Supervision

Amy Swiggs Exploring Arctic sea ice variability using satellite and meteorological records Start Date: 01/07/2023
Natasha Lee Trends in the Extent and Colour of Icelandic Proglacial Lakes Detected using Optical Satellite Remote Sensing Start Date: 28/03/2023

Further Information

My work is often reported in the media, and you can see me in a range of TV programmes including:

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Prizes and Awards

I have been awarded the following prizes:

2008: Philip Leverhulme Prize
2014: Royal Society Woldfson Research Merit Award
2021: International Glaciology Society Richardson Medal (share of)

Qualifications

Physics PhD January 01 1998

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