Sabrina Speich studies ocean dynamics and their role in global warming. Since she began her career in the 1990s, the physicist has lived through three decades of oceanographic revolution.
“Women oceanographers (5/12). They have made the ocean their object of study, sometimes even their main concern.Physicists, chemists, geologists or biologists, they all contribute to improving our knowledge of the marine environment. océans connectés goes to meet them throughout France.
By Marion Durand.
Cover photo © Marion Durand
When you type ‘Sabrina Speich’ into an online search engine, the results are several pages long. That a woman oceanographer should enjoy such notoriety, even if it doesn’t reach the heights of environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg, is rare enough to merit a mention.
On the web, we discover that she is answering a journalist’s questions about the weather; taking part in a meeting with children aged 13 to 18 organised by the Tara Foundation; dissecting the latest IPCC report for France Inter listeners and even hosting a ‘remedial course’ on a European media channel. Any opportunity is a good opportunity to bring marine science out of the shadows.
Sabrina Speich is a professor in the Department of Geosciences at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS-PSL) and a researcher at the Dynamic Meteorology Laboratory. That’s where we met her, in her office overlooking the rooftops of Paris.
“When you defend a cause, you have to see it through to the end”
After spending two hours with her, the main thing that stands out is that Sabrina Speich is a committed oceanographer and an outstanding populariser, which is no doubt why she is often described as a ‘specialist’. Her commitment to the climate goes far beyond the professional sphere. “I’m not afraid to fight for the climate, to open my mouth and say things. It’s part of our job, we have to talk about global warming’, she says.
Last July 2023, she had no hesitation in boycotting the Nice Climate Summit, where she was due to take part in round table discussions. The event, which was supposed to focus on climate issues, was organised in partnership with the giant TotalEnergie. It’s really greenwashing’, storms the climatologist. When you defend a cause, you have to see it through to the end!
Sabrina Speich studies ocean dynamics and their role in climate change © Marion Durand
Sabrina Speich is a physical oceanographer who studies ocean dynamics and their role in climate change. ‘I’m trying to understand how the oceans digest excess heat and carbon’, she explains. In fact, the oceans absorb more than 90% of the excess heat generated by the increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases due to human activities, while only 1% of this surplus ends up in the atmosphere. But this capacity to store heat is not without consequences: it causes a warming of marine waters, which influences the properties and dynamics of the ocean, its volume, its exchanges with the atmosphere and the habitats of marine ecosystems.
“What we have achieved over the last 30 years is fundamental”
After obtaining a master’s degree in physics at the University of Trieste in Italy, the German-Italian researcher began a doctorate at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, now Sorbonne University. A physicist by training, she got her first taste of oceanography when she became interested in sea circulation phenomena in the Mediterranean. “When I started out, my idea was to combine physics with my love of the ocean, in the hope of taking part in expeditions. Very quickly, in my life as a researcher, I was confronted with the problem of climate change’.
In the 1990s, the ocean was a vast expanse full of mysteries. The first major experiment was launched at the same time as the young scientist’s career: the World Ocean Circulation Experiment. It would provide the world’s first comprehensive study of the physical properties of the oceans. ‘We had just started taking measurements from boats and launching the first deep floats,” she recalls.
It was also the time of the first satellites to measure sea levels. In 1992, the Franco-American Topex-Poseidon satellite delivered the first accurate measurements of ocean currents and levels. ‘ For me, it was an incredible moment. I lived through the epic of oceanography, we went from a very partial vision of the ocean to a global vision’. Sabrina Speich is part of this scientific revolution. ‘ It seems like yesterday to me, but I’m still amazed by this development. What we’ve acquired over the last 30 years is fundamental, it’s the basis of current research’.
Sabrina Speich on board the oceanographic vessel Marion Dufresne II in February-March 2008 © Philippe Le Bot, LOPS Ifremer.
Politicians as ‘pretentious ignoramuses
Like most of her colleagues, Sabrina Speich is worried. ‘ For the last four years I’ve had trouble sleeping, and I’ve seen an acceleration in extreme events. It has to be said that climate scientists are not doing well, and many of their colleagues get aggressive feedback when they talk about climate change.
She is not reassured by political inaction. Annoyed, the oceanographer points the finger at the government. “I call them “pretentious ignoramuses” because they think that technology is going to solve the problem. They’re wrong to think it’s not that serious’. For her, the solutions to climate change must come first and foremost from the decision-makers. ‘ Citizens, farmers and local authorities are faced with long periods of drought, violent and destructive rainfall, intense coastal erosion and repeated flooding. But they are left to deal with these distressing problems on their own.
The climatologist has long been involved in United Nations committees coordinating the observation of climate and the oceans. She co-chairs the Ocean Observation Physics and Climate panel ( OOPC) under the aegis of the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organisation.
She remembers a time when data, methods and models were kept secretly within laboratories, or even disciplinary teams. “Oceanographic data is now open and accessible to all researchers. In 30 years, I’ve witnessed the creation of a large oceanic community’.
Sabrina Speich (right) speaks at COP27 in Sharm El Sheik (Egypt) on the new Implementation Plan for the Global Climate Observing System © Anthony Rea, OMM.
Teaching to convey urgency
When her hands are not in the data, Sabrina Speich stands in front of her students. She teaches ocean, atmospheric and climate sciences at the École normale supérieure (ENS) and at Sciences Po. ‘These are young people (at Sciences Po) who know little or nothing about science, but they want to understand climate change. Since the start of the academic year, 208 students have been taking the course taught by the oceanographer, compared with just 100 in the first year. It’s incredible,’ she says, ’because they are very enthusiastic, despite the very scientific and dense classes. For her, this interest proves that ‘society is becoming aware of the scale of the problem’.
At the age of 59, Sabrina Speich wants to relieve herself of the responsibilities she has long accepted in addition to her duties as a teacher-researcher. A former director of studies in the geosciences department at the ENS, she has been approached several times to head the department. ‘ I was a member of the National Council of Universities for 20 years, co-director of a doctoral school and of the physics department in Brest, a member of the scientific council of the Université de Bretagne Occidentale and of its board, and a member of the scientific council of the Muséum,” says the oceanographer, who now prefers to devote her time to research and teaching within her institution, but also with the UN and the World Meteorological Organisation. ‘ The last part of my career, I want to do for society.