At the southern tip of Chile, the city of Punta Arenas is in a prime location for accessing Antarctica. This is one of the reasons IceBridge calls Punta Arenas home for several weeks during Antarctic field campaigns. But IceBridge isn’t the only scientific game in town. The U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP), British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and […]
Gazing out the window of the IceBridge DC-8 aircraft is a bit unsettling. The Antarctic region is a vast and seemingly endless wilderness, and undoubtedly it is a dangerous place without the support of a fantastic array of technology and people. But there’s also a sense of comfort, even superiority, in that the modern wonders […]
On Friday morning, at 7:40 AM EDT, our WB-57 took off for a third, and final flight over Hurricane Gonzalo. At the time of our flight, Gonzalo was a Category 3 storm located south of Bermuda. While we were flying Gonzalo, one of the NOAA P-3s was also investigating Gonzalo. The data the P-3 collected will be particularly […]
Today was another interesting day here at MacDill. Our WB-57 took off around 11:16 EDT for Hurricane Gonzalo. During the science flight, Gonzalo’s maximum sustained winds were 145 mph as it continued on its track towards Bermuda. During the ~6 hour mission we were able to cross over the eye three times. Based on satellite imagery, it […]
HS3 UAV flights officially ended a couple of weeks ago, but there has been a successful extension of the HS3 mission through a new NASA/Navy collaboration. Two instruments from HS3 that didn’t get to fly this hurricane season due to aircraft issues, HIRad and HIWRAP, are now loaded onto a manned WB-57 and will be […]
Editor’s note: The following is a first-hand account of ARISE survey flights by one of the mission’s researchers. To see the first two days’ accounts, visit: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/fromthefield/2014/09/17/flying-with-arise/ Day 3 (Sept. 16, 2014) Today was a long flight day. It started off by trying to guess where the high clouds (i.e. cirrus) will move in. We […]
Most of the North American population probably wasn’t paying much attention, but the largest Atlantic storm since SANDY safely passed by the mainland well East of Bermuda in Mid-September. Edouard reached ‘Major Hurricane’ status as a category-3 storm on 9/16 and weakened over colder waters several days later. Below is a track for Edouard, compared […]
Flying above, below and through clouds in the Arctic gives the ARISE C-130 a different perspective on the world below. Nowhere is this more apparent than through the lenses of ARISE’s digital camera instrument. This instrument – one of many ARISE uses – captures views of clouds, ocean and ice that are both scenic and […]
Eielson Air Force Base, Fairbanks, Alaska, day 9 of our deployment: We are currently sitting together in our mission support and flight planning room, next to the Thunderdome Hangar on base. We have appropriately named this room, where we dedicate up to 10 hours each day, our WAR room – where we passionately discuss which […]
Editor’s note: The following is a first-hand account of ARISE survey flights by one of the mission’s researchers. Day 1 (Sep-11-2014) My first ARISE day started early in the morning after a late arrival into Fairbanks on the night before. This important mission’s goal is to map the sea ice and understand the relation between […]
