Illustration of NASA’s Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2), a mission to measure the altering top of Earth’s ice. Credit ranking: NASA
Melt Ponds, Summer season Ice, and Extra: Design Laser Measures Changing EarthSince 2003, Arctic sea ice has misplaced about a third of its volume. On the reverse aspect of the enviornment, at the opposite pole, fresh glacial lakes were stumbled on deep beneath the bottom of Antarctic ice. And at latitudes in between, altering water ranges in reservoirs revealed human influences.
These are correct about a of the 100-plus fresh discoveries made with steady top data from the 12 trillion laser measurements silent from NASA’s Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2).
Since its commence in September 2018, ICESat-2 has gathered data and impressed examine on our altering Earth – ranging from ice to tropical beaches and boreal forests to city areas. Earlier than commence, mission science team individuals talked about what they hoped it would aid us realize. After successfully ending its three-twelve months major mission, the mission now has the inexperienced gentle to proceed operations, and these ice consultants portion what it has stumbled on.
ICESat-2 measurements present an not seemingly level of precision because it measures Earth’s ground, including the Antarctic ice sheet viewed here. Credit ranking: NASA’s Goddard Design Flight Center / Kate Ramsayer
Ice and BeyondAlex Gardner, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California
“I’m genuinely amazed at the engineering of ICESat-2. We’re counting person photons bouncing off the bottom of Earth – with not seemingly precision. And the science that is flowing from it is not seemingly. Straight, we saw changes in the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, the impact of the ocean ingesting away at the ice and melting the bottom in Greenland.
“But what has also truly stood out is the variety of scientific fields the usage of ICESat-2. It spans ocean science, hydrology, the cryosphere, the biosphere – I knew there could per chance seemingly be a kind of solutions of the usage of the data, however I don’t mediate I anticipated how rapid that can happen. I’m having a survey forward to the tsunami of examine coming.”
A glacier on the Antarctic Peninsula flows into the Bellingshausen Sea, as viewed from a flight of the Operation IceBridge airborne mission, popular to calibrate and validate ICESat-2 data. Credit ranking: NASA / Kate Ramsayer
Melt in AntarcticaBrooke Medley, NASA’s Goddard Design Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland
“I mediate one in every of the coolest issues we’ve viewed is melt ponds in Antarctica. It will get your brain jogging – if we can even automatically detect person ponds and measure their depth, it would also advise us in regards to the liquid water storage at the bottom of the ice sheet, which is one in every of basically the most intricate issues to estimate at that sizable a scale.
“That’s a sexy ingredient about ICESat-2 – the scales at which you’ll also earn processes ranges from very small, esteem snow blowing around, the total skill as a lot as the entire ice sheet.”
Summertime IceNathan Kurtz, NASA Goddard“In the outdated few a long time, Arctic sea ice that popular to closing thru the summers hasn’t been surviving. And ICESat-2 works surprisingly neatly in summers, given the clouds and melt ponds. So we can music the thickness of sea ice into the melt season, and determine what’s causing the melt extra definitively.
“A couple of oldsters are drawn to sea ice predictions, and whether or no longer over a summer the Arctic would possibly be in actuality freed from sea ice. ICESat-2 helps us inform with self belief what’s occurring.”
Accuracy & Precision from the Internet-goKelly Brunt, NASA Goddard and the National Science Foundation
“ICESat-2 develop into steady and correct correct out of the gate. Coupled with that, it has ideal pointing info and pointing control, that means we operate to hit a space and we hit it.
“So after we repeat orbits to measure how issues switch over time, we can uncover a better sense of issues esteem the grounding zone of ice cabinets, where the ice meets the ocean. We can better measure where those are, and also see the impact of tides on the floating ice.”
A gap in the ocean ice duvet north of Greenland is partly stuffed in by a lot smaller sea ice rubble and floes, as viewed in some unspecified time in the future of an Operation IceBridge flight in September 2019. Credit ranking: NASA/Linette Boisvert
Snow on Ice on WaterRon Kwok, College of Washington
“ICESat-2 is an unprecedented instrument, because we’ve got the sort of principal enhance in resolution. It lets us see these slim leads, the open water between floes of sea ice.
“Good as principal, we can now pair it with CryoSat-2 to measure snow depth. ICESat-2 measures the tip of the snow, CryoSat-2 detects the interface of snow and ice, and together the data tells us no longer correct the snow depth however the ocean ice thickness as neatly. After three years of ICESat-2 frosty weather measurements, we saw the changes in the ice – and folks changes weren’t small.”
Frozen flood ponds on the ocean ice, as viewed in some unspecified time in the future of an Operation IceBridge flight in March 2017. Credit ranking: NASA/Jeremy Harbeck
A Recent Stage of DetailSinead Farrell, College of Maryland, Faculty Park
“The level of detail we can uncover from ICESat-2 is one thing we’ve never carried out from one other satellite. It’s a sport changer.
“It’s offering us with data about melt ponds on sea ice, that are roughly the sizes of Olympic swimming pools – and ICESat-2 can measure their depth from home. Here is huge because it enables us to catch how multiyear ice is melting out in summer. Now we earn to earn melt ponds to catch how weak the ice is to extra loss.”
Detecting Climate ImpactsThorsten Markus, NASA Headquarters in Washington
“ICESat-2 has gone beyond what it develop into designed for. I’m having a survey forward to extending the time series to uncover monthly data of polar areas over the years – one thing we haven’t had.
“As we uncover into 5, six, seven years of information, we can truly see native weather signals beyond what is as a outcome of weather. Then it turns into truly attention-grabbing, and we can better realize how native weather is impacting the poles.”