Anny Cazenave facts for kids

Anny Cazenave (French pronunciation: [ani kaznav]) is a French scientist. She is a space geodesist. This means she studies the Earth's shape, gravity, and how it changes. She is one of the first to use satellite altimetry. This technology uses satellites to measure the height of the ocean surface.

She works for the French space agency, CNES. Since 1996, she has been a leader at a special lab in Toulouse. This lab is called LEGOS. Since 2013, she has been a director. She works in Earth sciences at the International Space Science Institute in Switzerland.

Anny Cazenave is a top scientist. She worked on big satellite missions. These include TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason-1. Her work helped us better understand sea level rise. This rise is caused by global warming. She is also part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. She wrote important parts of their reports on sea level.

Early Life and Studies

Anny Cazenave was not expected to become a scientist. Her family was not from an academic background. But she earned a special doctorate in astronomy in Paris in 1969. She also got her Ph.D. in geophysics in 1975. This was from the University of Toulouse.

Discovering Earth's Changes

From 1975 to the mid-1990s, Anny Cazenave studied gravity. She looked at how gravity changes over time and in different places. She used data from satellites like SEASAT and ERS-1. This helped her create models of the deep ocean.

These models helped her study features like deep ocean trenches. She also looked at how the Earth's crust cools. Her work helped explain how mountains under the sea are formed.

In the 1990s, Cazenave started focusing on oceanography from space. She used data from satellites like TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason-1. Her main goal was to understand global sea level rise. She was one of the first to find that sea level was rising by about three millimeters each year.

She also used data from the GRACE satellite. This helped her balance the global sea level budget. This means she could figure out where the water was coming from. She also studied large bodies of water on land from space. She is very interested in how the Earth's gravity changes. This helps her study ice sheets and water stored on land.

Cazenave is a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. She was a lead author for their reports in 2007 and 2014. These reports explain how climate change affects sea levels. She has warned that flat areas like Bangladesh are at risk. Rising sea levels can cause salt water to get into their fresh groundwater.

In 2004, Anny Cazenave was chosen to join the French Academy of Sciences. In 2012, she received the William Bowie Medal. She is also a member of important science academies in the USA, India, and Belgium.

Selected Works

Anny Cazenave has written over 200 science articles. These articles have been published in international journals.

• A. Cazenave, K. Feigl, Formes et Mouvements de la Terre, Belin Editions, 1994. ISBN: 2701117135
• A. Cazenave, D. Massonnet, La Terre vue de l'espace, Belin Editions, 2004. ISBN: 2842450353

Awards and Honours

Anny Cazenave has received many awards for her work:

• Doisteau-Blutet Prize from the French Academy of Sciences (1979 and 1990)
• CNRS Bronze Medal (1980)
• Knight of the National Order of Merit (1981)
• Kodak-Pathe Landucci Prize from the French Academy of Sciences (1996)
• Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) (1996)
• Officer of the National Order of Merit (1997)
• Vening Meinesz Medal of the European Geophysical Society (1999)
• Knight of the Legion of Honour (2000)
• Arthur Holmes Medal & Honorary Membership (2005)
• Commander of the National Order of Merit (2007)
• Manley Bendall Prize, first Medal Albert of Monaco, the Oceanographic Institute (2008)
• Elected foreign member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (2008)
• Officer of the Legion of Honour (2010)
• Prix Émile Girardeau the Naval Academy (2010)
• Elected to the Indian National Science Academy (2011)
• Bowie Medal of the American Geophysical Union (2012)
• Grand Officer of the National Order of Merit (2015)
• Prix Georges Lemaître of the Université catholique de Louvain (2015)
• BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2018) (shared with Jonathan M. Gregory and John A. Church)
• Vetlesen Prize (2020)

See Also

In Spanish: Anny Cazenave para niños