Brice Noël, recipient of the Arne Richter Award from the European Geosciences Union (EGU)

The Arne Richter Award, presented annually by the European Geosciences Union (EGU) to Outstanding Early Career Scientists, has been awarded to Brice Noël, FNRS Research Associate in the Laboratory of Climatology at the University of Liège. This prestigious award recognises his groundbreaking research on glacier and ice sheet mass loss, which has led to major advances in the fields of climatology and glaciology.

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n 29 April 2025, in Vienna (Austria), the EGU’s Cryospheric Sciences Division officially conferred the Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Early Career Scientists upon Brice Noël. The award honours promising young scientists for excellence in Earth, planetary and space sciences. Brice Noël was awarded in recognition of the exceptional quality of his work, his significant scientific impact, and his extensive international collaborations. As a passionate and deeply committed researcher, he is now established as a leading expert in polar climate modelling.

“In my research, I use regional climate models, including MAR (Modèle Atmosphérique Régional) developed at the University of Liège, to study the surface mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet and other glaciers worldwide. This balance refers to the difference between snow accumulation in winter and meltwater runoff into the ocean during summer,” explains Noël. In his scientific career, he has made significant contributions to enhancing the spatial resolution of climate models to reach the sub-kilometre scale – a pivotal step for accurately representing melt processes affecting small size glaciers. In his research, he notably identified a tipping point that triggered a dramatic mass loss acceleration of Greenland's peripheral ice caps.

His work has also provided key insights into the rapid melting of glaciers across the globe, including the Canadian Arctic, Svalbard, Iceland and Patagonia. Furthermore, he has improved the modelling of snowfall and melting in Antarctica, and helped refine global climate model projections up to the year 2300. These projections highlight processes that could significantly accelerate the mass loss of the Greenland Ice Sheet under various warming scenarios.

Noël’s findings are widely used by researchers around the world and have directly informed IPCC reports concerning sea level rise driven by climate change.