NASA IceBridge: Airborne surveys of the polar sea ice covers

Abstract:

The NASA Operation IceBridge (OIB) airborne sea ice surveys are designed to continue a valuable series of sea ice thickness measurements by bridging the gap between NASA’s Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), which operated from 2003 to 2009, and ICESat-2, which is scheduled for launch in 2017. Initiated in 2009, OIB has conducted campaigns over the western Arctic Ocean (March/April) and Southern Oceans (October/November) on an annual basis. Primary OIB sensors being used for sea ice observations include the Airborne Topographic Mapper laser altimeter, the Digital Mapping System digital camera, a Ku-band radar altimeter, a frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) snow radar, and a KT-19 infrared radiation pyrometer. Data from the campaigns are available to the research community at: http://nsidc.org/data/icebridge/.

This presentation will summarize the spatial and temporal extent of the campaigns and highlight key scientific accomplishments, which include:

 • Documented changes in the Arctic marine cryosphere since the dramatic sea ice loss of 2007

• Novel snow depth measurements over sea ice in the Arctic

• Improved skill of April-to-September sea ice predictions via numerical ice/ocean models

• Validation of satellite altimetry measurements (ICESat, CryoSat-2, and IceSat-2/MABEL)