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Earth, Ice
Aug 17, 2020
Researchers on the NASA-funded Community Snow Observations (CSO) project recently found a new way to use data from citizen scientists. This project asks volunteer to measure the depth of the snow in mountain environments and uses those data to improve snowpack models.
Ryan Crumley measures snow depth in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
Earth, Climate Change, Ice
May 7, 2020
Join NASA ice experts as we discuss important science about Earth's icy regions, and how it can impact us here in warmer environments. NASA’s ICESat-2 mission uses a laser instrument on a satellite to precisely measure ice and just released new findings about how Earth’s ice is changing. Scientists... Read More
Earth, Ice
Feb 27, 2020
For eleven years from 2009 to 2019, the planes of NASA’s Operation IceBridge flew above the Arctic, Antarctic and Alaska, gathering data on the height, depth, thickness, flow and change of sea ice, glaciers and ice sheets.
Operation Ice Bridge
Earth, Climate Change, Ice
Aug 5, 2019
IceCube—a tiny, bread loaf-sized satellite—has produced the world’s first map of the global distribution of atmospheric ice in the 883-Gigahertz (GHz) band. Information about cloud ice enables researchers to better understand Earth’s weather and changing climate.
Art concept of IceCube satellite in orbit
Earth, Ice
Sep 7, 2018
NASA missions are helping scientists study the cryosphere - the many forms of ice found on Earth.
Cool Ways of Studying the Cryosphere Poster
Earth, Ice
Sep 7, 2018
One of the key elements of Earth’s climate system is the cryosphere – the many forms of ice found on Earth. Two new NASA missions use different technologies to help scientists better understand how frozen water is affecting our planet. Both will continue satellite data records that have greatly... Read More
Earth, Climate Change, Ice
Feb 21, 2018
A NASA study based on an innovative technique for crunching torrents of satellite data provides the clearest picture yet of changes in Antarctic ice flow into the ocean. The findings confirm accelerating ice losses from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and reveal surprisingly steady rates of flow from... Read More
Map illustrating the flow of Antarctic ice
Earth, Climate Change, Ice
Feb 16, 2018
Last year was a record-breaking one for Operation IceBridge, NASA’s aerial survey of the state of polar ice. For the first time in its nine-year history, the mission, which aims to close the gap between two NASA satellite campaigns that study changes in the height of polar ice, carried out seven... Read More
An ice glacier.
Earth, Ice
Sep 11, 2017
This blog post originated in the 2015 Science Mission Directorate Technology Highlights Report (2 MB PDF). Technology Development: A new instrument, the Ultrawideband Software-Defined Microwave Radiometer (UWBRAD), aims to provide measurements of ice sheet thermal emission to remotely sense... Read More
Photograph of Canadian Rocky mountains, view from airplane
Earth, Climate Change, Ice
Jun 8, 2017
NASA's OMG and Operation IceBridge missions are investigating the thinning of Greenland's ice sheets from both above and below.
Greenland's Thinning Ice Poster
Earth, Climate Change, Ice
Jun 8, 2017
With temperatures around the world climbing, melt waters from the continental ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica are raising sea levels. Those ice sheets are melting from both above and below. Much of the ice lost from ice sheets comes from a process called calving where ice erodes, breaks off... Read More
Greenland's Thinning Ice Poster
Ice
Aug 24, 2016
Technology Development: The Wideband (8-40 GHz) Instrument for Snow Measurement (WISM) is designed to accurately measure snowpack on the ground from an airborne platform. WISM is comprised of a dual-frequency (X- and Ku-bands) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and a dual-frequency (K- and Ka-bands)... Read More
Photograph of small airplane on tarmac with mountains in the background.