P-3B Starts the Day
On March 21, 2013, the P-3B waits outside the hangar at Thule Air Base with the Greenland Ice sheet in the background.
IceBridge, a six-year NASA mission, is the largest airborne survey of
Earth's polar ice ever flown. It will yield an unprecedented
three-dimensional view of Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets, ice shelves
and sea ice. These flights will provide a yearly, multi-instrument look
at the behavior of the rapidly changing features of the Greenland and
Antarctic ice.
Data collected during IceBridge will help
scientists bridge the gap in polar observations between NASA's Ice,
Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) -- in orbit since 2003 --
and ICESat-2, planned for early 2016. ICESat stopped collecting science
data in 2009, making IceBridge critical for ensuring a continuous series
of observations.
IceBridge will use airborne instruments to map
Arctic and Antarctic areas once a year. IceBridge flights are conducted
in March-May over Greenland and in October-November over Antarctica.
Other smaller airborne surveys around the world are also part of the
IceBridge campaign.
Image Credit: NASA/Goddard/Michael Studinger
No comments:
Post a Comment