Arctic Ice Shield In The Focus of NASA Science Flights

The annual science flights of NASA's Operation IceBridge have started, with the first of a series of science flights from Greenland completed on Wednesday. Scientists are conducting research over Arctic ice sheets and sea ice with the goal to monitor and quantify the changes (shrinking) of the ice masses.

NASA began the Operation IceBridge airborne campaign in 2009 as a way to continue the record of polar ice measurements made by NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite's (ICESat) after the satellite stopped gathering data. By flying campaigns in the Arctic and Antarctic each year, IceBridge is maintaining a continuous record of change until the launch of ICESat-2 in 2016.

The researchers now utilize a specially equipped P-3B research aircraft, operating out of airfields in Thule and Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, and Fairbanks, Alaska. The flights are scheduled to carry out survey flights over land and sea ice in and around Greenland and the Arctic Ocean through early May, and will this year also expand coverage in Antarctica.

Dramatic changes to Arctic sea ice, such as the record-breaking minimum levels reached in 2012, and the potential societal effects of ice loss in the region are driving the demand for sea ice measurements. In addition to sea ice, IceBridge will survey the Greenland Ice Sheet in the interior of the country and in rapidly changing areas along the coast, such as the Jakobshavn Glacier.

"We're starting to see how the whole ice sheet is changing," Michael Studinger, NASA IceBridge project scientist, said. "Thinning at the margins is now propagating to the interior."