Jean-Claude Gascard
French National Center for Scientific Research, France
Biography
Jean-Claude Gascard is a Physical Oceanographer specializing in Deep Ocean Convection and Polar Oceanography. He started his observations in the Mediterranean Sea in the 1970s leading to his Doctorate Degree in 1977, then in the Labrador Sea and in the Greenland Sea in the 90s when he published a paper in Nature about Sub-mesoscale Coherent Vortex (SCV) generated during deep ocean convection. This is a major element of the thermohaline ocean circulation mechanism often called the great conveyor belt. His first Arctic expedition was in 1983–1984 during the MIZEX experiment in Fram Strait. He led large European projects in the Arctic during the International Polar Year: the DAMOCLES project from 2005 to 2010 and more recently the ACCESS project (2011-2015) a multidisciplinary Arctic project for understanding the impacts of the Arctic climate change on the economy and the society. He has published more than 100 papers and edited four books.