Operation IceBridge - Studying Earth's Polar Ice

10.16.14
NASA Begins Sixth Year of Airborne Antarctic Ice Change Study

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A view of the Pine Island Glacier ice shelf seen from NASA’s DC-8 during an IceBridge survey flight in 2011. Credit: NASA / Jefferson Beck

NASA is carrying out its sixth consecutive year of Operation IceBridge research flights over Antarctica to study changes in the continent’s ice sheet, glaciers and sea ice. This year’s airborne campaign, which began its first flight Thursday morning, will revisit a section of the Antarctic ice sheet that recently was found to be in irreversible decline.

For the next several weeks, researchers will fly aboard NASA’s DC-8 research aircraft out of Punta Arenas, Chile. This year also marks the return to western Antarctica following 2013’s campaign based at the National Science Foundation’s McMurdo Station.

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Read more about the IceBridge 2014 Antarctic campaign.
 

10.07.14
Final Flights for ARISE

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The ARISE research team lines up in front of the NASA C-130 at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, for a group photo on Sept. 21, 2014. Credit: U.S. Air Force / Eielson Air Force Base Public Affairs

NASA researchers completed two more science flights over the Arctic, collecting valuable data in spite of uncooperative weather.

On the morning of Sept. 21, the ARISE team took off for a survey of sea ice, clouds and solar and thermal energy that targeted an area close to the region flown two days earlier. After takeoff the team found that conditions were too cloudy for one part of the survey, a measurement of sunlight and thermal energy reflecting from the surface that required clear conditions. However, researchers were able to collect sea ice elevation data and study two cloud formations. The first one was on the eastern side of the planned survey area. During the flight, the ARISE ground team spotted the second formation, a deck of low clouds to the north, on satellite and directed the C-130 there.

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Read more about the IceBridge 2014 ARISE campaign.