NASA Begins Operation IceBridge

On Monday of this week, NASA researchers launched Operation Icebridge which is an airborne mission to study changes in the northern polar ice cap. The crews, including an international coalition, will begin the survey from their current location in Thule, Greenland. 

This will be the third annual survey of the ice cap under Operation IceBridge. The mission also includes annual surveys of the southern ice sheet in Antartica beginning in October. The goal is to collect data of ice elevation on the planet as this is a key indicator for predicting and understanding climate change.

“The Canadian ice caps are notably smaller than the Greenland and
Antarctic ice sheets, but are still significant potential contributors to sea-level change in the next few decades,” said Charles Webb, deputy cryosphere program manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “They also serve as potential early-warning indicators, responding more sensitively to temperature changes than the more massive ice sheets.”

Measurements had been taken via satellite using ICESat, NASA’s Ice Cloud and land Elevation Satellite. Unfortunately, this satellite stopped functioning in 2009 and its replacement, ICESat-2, will not be operational until at least 2016. So, until that time, the agency plans to keep Operation IceBridge an annual mission.

“Each successive IceBridge campaign has broadened in scope,” said IceBridge project scientist Michael Studinger of Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “This year, we have more flight hours and flight plans than ever before. We are looking forward to a busy, fruitful campaign.”

Researchers will utilize P-3B aircraft from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, the same type of aircraft used by the Navy to hunt for submarines. NASA’s version is outfitted with topographic mapping equipment which uses lasers to measure the changes in surface elevation. The mission will run for about 10 weeks.