NASA scientists to head far north to study melting Arctic sea ice

NASA scientists will soon board a plane and fly out of Thule Air Base in northwestern Greenland alongside laser instruments to help calibrate the agency's space-based measurements of Arctic ice.

"The ice researchers and instrument scientists will board NASA's Gulfstream V jet and fly out of Thule Air Base in northwestern Greenland to head even farther north. And if they're lucky with the weather, they'll do that up to seven times," NASA said in a press release on Monday.

The airborne campaign will study the jumble of ice, snow and melt ponds in the Arctic Ocean to better understand how the thickness of Arctic sea ice changes during warming summer months.

Scientists believe that NASA's Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) can effectively infer this summer thickness. Launched in September 2018, ICESat-2 carries a laser altimeter that detects individual photons, allowing scientists to measure the elevation of ice sheets, sea ice, forests and more in unprecedented detail.

But to know for sure, the satellite measurements need to be confirmed by other measurements taken nearer to the surface – and that's why the scientists are flying over some of the most remote areas on the planet, says NASA.

The new ICESat-2 airborne campaign will check the ICESat-2 sea ice thickness estimates during summer and improve their accuracy. Thereafter, the findings will be used to improve computer programs that provide year-round ice thickness information.

The plane will fly at both 30,000 feet and 1,600 feet, on routes designed to measure the same ice that the satellite is covering from its orbit about 300 miles above Earth. Two different laser instruments, one from Goddard and one from the University of Texas, Austin, will be aboard.

"The changes in Arctic summer sea ice thickness in the summer are really important since this is the time when the thicker, multi-year ice is disappearing. We want to keep track of it, but historically it's been really difficult to do across the whole of the Arctic," said Nathan Kurtz, ICESat-2 deputy project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Scientists will soon fly out of Thule Air Base in Greenland with laser instruments aboard @NASA's Gulfstream V jet. The flights will help calibrate NASA's space-based measurements of Arctic ice. Read more: https://t.co/fVH0JP2ut1 pic.twitter.com/Aevd0JjLVX

— NASA Ice (@NASA_ICE) July 11, 2022