About

Jerry X. Mitrovica is the Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University and an affiliate in Environmental Science & Engineering. His primary teaching areas include Environmental Science & Engineering, with research focusing on climate change, climate dynamics, geophysics, ice dynamics, sea level, and planetary sciences. Based at Harvard's John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, he is involved in advancing understanding of Earth's physical processes related to climate and sea level changes.

Research topics

• Oceanography
• Geology
• Environmental science
• Paleontology
• Climatology
• Astronomy
• Geodesy
• Astrobiology
• Geography
• Physics
• Earth science
• Physical geography
• Engineering
• Aerospace engineering

Selected publications

• The effect of sediment loading from the Río de la Plata: driving regional sea-level variability

  2026-03-14

  articleOpen access

  Sea-level reconstructions are essential for evaluating models of ice-sheet stability and climate change, but their interpretation is often confounded by sea-level signals produced by multiple processes, including the Earth’s deformation in response to sediment loading. Here we show that accounting for sediment isostasy resolves long-standing inconsistencies among Marine Isotopic Stage (MIS) 5a and 5e sea-level records from the Río de la Plata estuary, reducing mismatches by up to an order of magnitude. This result demonstrates that regional sedimentary histories can bias relative sea-level estimates by several meters compared with conventional approaches based only on glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA). We also show that sediment loading has affected relative sea level across the Holocene and may continue to influence present-day tide-gauge observations in the region. Together, these findings emphasize the need for regionally detailed sedimentation histories rather than reliance on global compilations alone, and they motivate expanded shelf coring and seismic surveying.

  PublisherDOI

• Inverting Sea Surface Height Data Yields Greenland Ice Mass Changes (1993-2019): A Proof of Concept

  Geophysical Journal International · 2026-05-13

  articleOpen access

  Summary Previous work has demonstrated a significant correlation between the pattern of sea level change computed from an altimeter-based inference of Greenland ice mass flux from 1993-2019 and sea surface height (SSH) observations adjacent to the island. However, a key question is unanswered in this detection; namely, what constraints on ice mass flux do the SSH observations provide? To address this issue, we perform a series of inversions of the available SSH data offshore Greenland. Our results indicate that such inversions are highly non-unique. However, we also demonstrate that robust inferences can be obtained by incorporating reasonable a-priori constraints, in our case limiting the ice model to a small set of discs associated with the major drainage basins of the ice sheet that are proximal to the SSH observations. Our inversions in this case yield estimates of average ice mass loss in the range 0.62-0.70 mm/yr in units of equivalent global mean sea level change over the period 1993-2019, when the observations are corrected for the signal of dynamic sea level change. This inference agrees with independent ice altimeter-based estimates of Greenland ice sheet mass flux rates, showing broadly consistent relative ice mass loss rates across southern Greenland basins. Our analysis is the first to directly invert SSH observations for ice mass changes and we conclude that the consideration of such data, particularly in combination with other data sets (e.g., GRACE gravity, ice altimeter measurements, GNSS observations) has the potential to improve constraints on ice sheet mass changes in a warming world.

  PublisherDOI

• Inverting Sea Surface Height Data Yields Greenland Ice Mass Changes (1993-2019): A Proof of Concept

  Apollo (University of Cambridge) · 2026-05-19

  articleOpen access

  Summary Previous work has demonstrated a significant correlation between the pattern of sea level change computed from an altimeter-based inference of Greenland ice mass flux from 1993-2019 and sea surface height (SSH) observations adjacent to the island. However, a key question is unanswered in this detection; namely, what constraints on ice mass flux do the SSH observations provide? To address this issue, we perform a series of inversions of the available SSH data offshore Greenland. Our results indicate that such inversions are highly non-unique. However, we also demonstrate that robust inferences can be obtained by incorporating reasonable a-priori constraints, in our case limiting the ice model to a small set of discs associated with the major drainage basins of the ice sheet that are proximal to the SSH observations. Our inversions in this case yield estimates of average ice mass loss in the range 0.62-0.70 mm/yr in units of equivalent global mean sea level change over the period 1993-2019, when the observations are corrected for the signal of dynamic sea level change. This inference agrees with independent ice altimeter-based estimates of Greenland ice sheet mass flux rates, showing broadly consistent relative ice mass loss rates across southern Greenland basins. Our analysis is the first to directly invert SSH observations for ice mass changes and we conclude that the consideration of such data, particularly in combination with other data sets (e.g., GRACE gravity, ice altimeter measurements, GNSS observations) has the potential to improve constraints on ice sheet mass changes in a warming world.

  PublisherDOI

• Combining paleocurrents and sea level in a least-cost pathway model of human dispersal from Sunda to Sahul, 65–45,000 years ago

  Quaternary Science Reviews · 2026-03-21 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Quantifying Asymmetries in Flood Area and Population Exposure Between Sea Level Fingerprints of Mass Loss from the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets

  2025-07-03

  preprintOpen access

  Recent advances in modeling 21 st -century sea level rise (SLR) and its associated societal outcomes have demonstrated that the spatial pattern of SLR combined with highly variable population density along global coastlines exert a strong control on its impacts. Here, we extend this research by examining differential costs arising from two sources of SLR that exhibit distinct spatial “fingerprints” — mass flux from the Antarctic (AIS) and Greenland (GrIS) Ice Sheets. To do this, we employ the DSCIM-Coastal data and modeling platform to quantify flood extents and population exposure to inundation from sea level changes associated with an ensemble of Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Product projections between 2015 and 2100 CE. We also introduce the Social Cost of Ice Sheet Mass loss (SC-ISM) metric and calculate this for both AIS and GrIS mass loss scenarios. Due to the distinct sea level fingerprints of the two ice sheets, we find that mass flux from the AIS floods a larger area and would inundate a greater (present-day) population than an equivalent mass flux from the GrIS and yields a substantially higher SC-ISM. Across a suite of future climate scenarios, the global SC-ISM associated with AIS mass loss is ~30% higher than that of GrIS, driven largely by differential SLR rates along the North Atlantic coastline. Additionally, the SC-ISM from each ice sheet, as well as that of a uniform sea level rise scenario, shows strongly disproportionate impacts. When normalized by local GDP, low-income regions experience a greater economic burden than high-income regions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Ice Sheets Without Dynamic Topography

  2025-02-18

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Dynamic topography results in uplift and subsidence events on Earth’s surface with amplitudes on the order of a kilometer over time periods of a few million years. These vertical motions are known to have influenced ice sheet evolution, but how dynamic topography has controlled the current state of present ice sheets is unknown. Here, we explore this by running ice sheet models to their equilibrium state after removing present-day dynamic topography. We find that Antarctic ice cover is significantly different without dynamic topography; the Marie Byrd Land sector of West Antarctica loses 1.542 ×106 gigatonnes of ice, while the Weddell Sea sector gains 1.23623 ×106 gigatonnes. In Greenland, we see ice loss in the east and large sectors of the ice sheet become marine based. Taken together, these findings indicate that present-day dynamic topography has played a major role in the equilibrium geometries of modern ice sheets.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The geometry of sea-level change across a mid-Pliocene glacial cycle

  Climate of the past · 2025-01-10

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Abstract. Predictions of future sea-level change and ice-sheet stability rely on accurate reconstructions of sea levels for past warm intervals, such as the mid-Pliocene Warm Period (MPWP; 3.264–3.025 Ma). The magnitude of MPWP glacial cycles and the relative contribution of meltwater sources remain uncertain. We explore this issue by modeling processes of glacial isostatic adjustment for a wide range of possible MPWP ice-sheet melt zones, including North America, Greenland, Eurasia, and West Antarctica, as well as the Wilkes Basin, the Aurora Basin, and the embayment of Prydz Bay in East Antarctica. As a case study, we use a series of ice histories together with a suite of viscoelastic Earth models to predict global changes in sea level from the Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) M2 glacial to the MIS KM3 interglacial. At the Whanganui Basin (New Zealand), a location with stratigraphic constraints on Pliocene glacial–interglacial sea-level amplitude, the calculated local-sea-level (LSL) rise is on average ∼ 15 % lower than the associated change in the global mean sea level (GMSL) in the ice-sheet scenarios explored here. In contrast, the calculated LSL rise over the deglaciation from MIS M2 to MIS KM3 at Enewetak Atoll is systematically larger than the GMSL change by 10 %. While no single LSL observation (field site) can provide a unique constraint on the sources of ice melt observed during this period, combinations of observations have the potential to yield a stronger constraint on GMSL change and to narrow the list of possible sources.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Closing the budget of 20th century true polar wander

  Geophysical Journal International · 2025-05-29

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  SUMMARY We revisit the budget of 20th century true polar wander (~1°/Myr in the direction of 70°W) using a state-of-the-art adjoint-based reconstruction of mantle convective flow and predictions of ongoing glacial isostatic adjustment that adopt two independent models of Pleistocene ice history. Both calculations are based on a mantle viscosity profile that simultaneously fits a suite of data sets related to glacial isostatic adjustment (Fennoscandian Relaxation Spectrum, post-glacial decay times) and a set of present-day observations associated with mantle convection (long-wavelength gravity-anomalies, plate motions, excess ellipticity of the core–mantle boundary). Our predictions reconcile both the magnitude and direction of the observed true polar wander rate, with convection and glacial isostatic adjustment contributing signals that are 25–30 per cent and ~75 per cent of the observed rate, respectively. The former assumes that large-scale seismic velocity heterogeneities are purely thermal in origin, and we argue that our estimate of the convection signal likely represents an upper bound due to the neglect of hypothesized compositional variations within the large low-shear velocity provinces in the deep mantle.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Quantifying Asymmetries in the Societal Impacts of Mass Loss from the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets

  2025-11-24

  article

  Recent advances in modeling 21 st -century sea-level rise (SLR) and its associated societal outcomes have demonstrated that the spatial pattern of SLR combined with highly variable population density along global coastlines exert a strong control on its impacts. Here, we extend this research by examining differential costs arising from two sources of SLR that exhibit distinct spatial “fingerprints” — mass flux from the Antarctic (AIS) and Greenland (GrIS) Ice Sheets. To do this, we employ the DSCIM-Coastal data and modeling platform to quantify flood extents and population exposure to inundation from sea-level changes associated with an ensemble of Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project projections between 2015 and 2100 CE. We also introduce the Social Cost of Ice Sheet Mass loss (SC-ISM) metric and calculate this for both AIS and GrIS mass loss scenarios. Due to the distinct sea-level fingerprints of the two ice sheets, we find that mass flux from the AIS floods a larger area and would inundate a greater (present-day) population than an equivalent mass flux from the GrIS and yields a substantially higher SC-ISM. Across a suite of future climate scenarios, the global SC-ISM associated with AIS mass loss is ~30% higher than that of GrIS, driven largely by differential SLR rates along North Atlantic coastlines. Additionally, across both ice sheet mass loss scenarios and a uniform sea-level rise scenario, the SC-ISM exhibits disproportionate impacts. In other words, when normalized by local GDP, low-income regions experience a greater economic burden than high-income regions, regardless of sea-level rise source.

  PublisherDOI

• Ice Sheets Without Dynamic Topography

  Geophysical Research Letters · 2025-10-03

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Dynamic topography results in uplift and subsidence events on Earth's surface with amplitudes on the order of a kilometer. These vertical motions are known to have influenced ice sheet evolution, but how dynamic topography has controlled the current state of present ice sheets is unknown. Here, we explore this by running ice sheet models to their equilibrium state after removing present‐day dynamic topography. We find that Antarctic ice cover is significantly different without dynamic topography; in our optimal dynamic topography model, the ice mass (grounded area) in Marie Byrd Land decreases by 58% (55%), while the ice mass (grounded area) in the Weddell Sea increases 55% (77%). In Greenland, we see ice loss in the east and, in our optimal dynamic topography model, large sectors of the ice sheet become marine‐based. Taken together, these findings indicate that dynamic topography plays a major role in the equilibrium geometries of ice sheets.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: P2C2 - Reconstructing rates and sources of sea-level change over the last ~150 thousand years from a new coral database

  NSF · $68k · 2017–2019

• Collaborative research: Sea-level responses to sediment erosion and deposition over the past 3 million years

  NSF · $89k · 2015–2018

• Collaborative Research: P2C2 -- Statistical estimation of past ice sheet volumes from paleo-sea level records

  NSF · $96k · 2012–2015

• CSEDI Collaborative Research: Anelastic properties of the Earth from seismic to tidal timescale

  NSF · $144k · 2015–2018

Frequent coauthors

• Konstantin Latychev

  233 shared

• Jacqueline Austermann

  183 shared

• Carling C. Hay

  Boston College

  121 shared

• Natalya Gomez

  114 shared

• Mark Hoggard

  Australian National University

  107 shared

• Evelyn Powell

  102 shared

• A. M. Forte

  University of Florida

  85 shared

• Tamara Pico

  83 shared