NASA Ice Bridge Project

This looks like a great research project to follow-

GREENBELT, Md. -- Researchers and flight crew with NASA's Operation IceBridge, an airborne mission to study changes in polar ice, began another season of science activity with the start of the 2012 Arctic campaign on March 13. From mid-March through mid-May, a modified P-3 from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va., will conduct daily missions out of Thule and Kangerlussuaq, Greenland —with one flight to Fairbanks, Alaska and back—to measure sea and land ice. The campaign will also feature instrument tests, continued international collaboration and educational activities.

After NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite's (ICESat) stopped collecting data in 2009, Operation IceBridge began as a way to continue the multi-year record of ice elevation measurements until the launch of ICESat-2 in 2016. IceBridge gathers data during annual campaigns over the Arctic starting in March and Antarctic starting in October.

IceBridge flights will measure both previously surveyed sites, such as Greenland's Jakobshavn Glacier, and unstudied areas of sea ice, such as the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska. "The most important sea ice flights are the transits between Thule and Fairbanks," said IceBridge project scientist Michael Studinger.

The P-3 carries an array of instruments for measuring ice surface elevation and thickness and snow depth, and will be joined by other aircraft later in the campaign. The Airborne Topographic Mapper uses lasers to measure changes in surface elevation and uses these readings to create elevation maps. Radar instruments from the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan., show snow and ice thickness and allow scientists to see through land ice to the bedrock below. A gravimeter from Sander Geophysics and Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, N.Y., similarly lets researchers determine water depth beneath floating ice.

A Falcon jet from NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., carrying a high-altitude laser altimeter, the Land, Vegetation, and Ice Sensor (LVIS) will join the P-3 on April 19. The Falcon flies higher and faster than the P-3, which allows it to cover longer flight lines and enables LVIS to survey a 2-km (1.2 mile) wide swath of ice. The Falcon will play a critical role in surveying near coastal areas of Greenland, and in sea ice flights out of Thule.

IceBridge will also join in efforts to validate and calibrate sea ice measurements by CryoSat-2, the European Space Agency's ice-monitoring satellite. ESA's airborne calibration campaign, CryoVEx, aims to ensure that CryoSat-2's radar readings are accurate. "One of our prime goals in Thule will be to underfly a European CryoSat sea ice track within two hours of its passage over the sea ice north of Greenland," said acting project manager Seelye Martin.

A Look at 2012 Arctic Ice Trends

The 2012 Arctic ice outlook is mixed. Any Arctic vessels looking to transit the Northwest Passage will have a much better chance entering from the Atlantic and Baffin Bay vs the Bering Sea. There will be delays in the shipping season through the Bering and Chukchi Seas as they have had a tremendously challenging winter throughout these areas as the National Snow and Ice Data Center lays out below:

Overall, Arctic sea ice extent remained lower than average in January. However, in the Bering Sea, ice extent was much greater than normal. The heavy ice cover caused problems for fishermen and made for an arduous late-season resupply mission to Nome, Alaska. The Arctic Oscillation, which had been in its positive phase most of the winter so far, switched to a negative mode, bringing cold weather to Europe and changing the direction of sea ice movement.

January 2012 compared to past years-
Arctic sea ice extent for January 2012 was the fourth lowest in the satellite record. Including the year 2012, the linear rate of decline for January ice extent over the satellite record is 3.2% per decade.
Based on the satellite record, before 2005 average January ice extent had never been lower than 14 million square kilometers (5.41 million square miles). January ice extent has now fallen below that mark six out of the last seven years.

900 Record Highs Across the USA

Wow. Record-setting January weather. This reminds me very much of the winter of 2006-7 when lakes all through the upper Midwest did not freeze over the winter. Many of these signs were present as I headed north to attempt the Northwest Passage by sailboat. As we all know, the summer of 2007 turned out to be the record-setting loss of ice year of all-time. I am afraid we are going to see that again this coming summer. I don't understand how anyone can deny what is really happening anymore...

Change in Arctic More than Just Science

I have been following trends in the Arctic for quite some time now but two recent stories have caught my eye as reported in the Arctic Portal, a great source for Arctic news- http://www.arcticportal.org/news

I hear the arguments going on all the time in the lower 48. Skeptics versus scientists and all the "real"
people who live and work in the Arctic get lost and forgotten in this senseless debate. I firmly believe in the struggles of the real people and animals who live and work in the region to tell the story of a changing Arctic in a different but much more effective way than the scientists who produce effective but sometimes confusing data.

The two stories here offer real-life data in real time documenting the on-going future and trends in the
once frozen region:


Climate Change Leading to Starving Dogs 

Lack of ice is hindering hunting in Greenland. Humans are not the only one who rely on hunting in, the dogs in Qaanaaq are starving.

The weather and climate change are causing problems in Greenland. Five years ago the sea ice had frozen in early November, making hunting for dog food easy, hunting both seals and fish.

This year it is unforeseen when the ice will freeze.

Northern Sea Route Closes for the Season

The Northern Sea Route shipping season is now over. New ice forming in the Arctic ocean hinders any more shipping. This is the longest shipping season ever, one month longer then last year.

The Perseverance was both the first and last vessel this year to go the route, the first one was the 29th of June and the last one today. The ship transported stable gas condensate from Murmansk in Russia to China, with the help of a Russian icebreaker. Russia’s Ministry of Transport believes cargo transport through the NSR will increase from 1.8 million tons in 2010 to 64 million tons by 2020.

Need any more proof that the Arctic is now open for business? The sad story from this is that the native peoples of the region will have a harder time sustaining themselves with the on-going
changes to their new environment.

Arctic Ice Reaches Summer Minimum

According the NSIDC (National Snow and Ice Data Center) the Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its lowest extent for the year. The minimum ice extent was the second lowest in the satellite record, after 2007, and continues the decadal trend of rapidly decreasing summer sea ice.

Conditions in context:
The last five years (2007 to 2011) have been the five lowest extents in the continuous satellite record, which extends back to 1979. While the record low year of 2007 was marked by a combination of weather conditions that favored ice loss (including clearer skies, favorable wind patterns, and warm temperatures), this year has shown more typical weather patterns but continued warmth over the Arctic. This supports the idea that the Arctic sea ice cover is continuing to thin. Models and remote sensing data also indicate this is the case.

Arctic Ice Loss in August

August 2011 compared to previous years.
Average Arctic sea ice extent for August 2011 was the second-lowest for August in the satellite data record. Including 2011 the linear trend for August now stands at –9.3% per decade.

The Northern Sea Route and NW Passage are simultaneously open. The door is open for commerce in the north and many countries are taking advantage of this. This new trend should be another sign and confirmation that climate change in rapidly changing the earth's environments.

Massive Change in Greenland Ice

By Ian Johnston msnbc.com 2011-09-01T14:43:21

New photographs taken of a vast glacier in northern Greenland have revealed the astonishing rate of the glacial breakup, with one scientist saying he was rendered "speechless."

"The break-off last year is bigger than anything seen for at least 150 years," glacial researcher Alun Hubbard said.

Taken nearly two years apart, the photos show the extent of the ice loss. The channel is about ten miles wide. Scientists returned in July this year and found the ice had been melting so quickly that some of their research masts stuck into the glacier were no longer in position. Hubbard, who has been working with Jason Box, of Ohio State University, and others, said in a statement issued by the Byrd Polar Research Center that scientists were still trying to work out how fast the glacier was moving and the effect on the ice sheet feeding the glacier.

"Although I knew what to expect in terms of ice loss from satellite imagery, I was still completely unprepared for the gob-smacking scale of the break-up, which rendered me speechless," he said in the statement. "I'm very familiar with the glacier. It's very hard to sort of envisage something so big not being there ... to come back and basically see an ice shelf has disappeared, which is 20 kilometers across (about 12 miles) ... I was speechless and started laughing because I couldn't sort of believe it," Hubbard added, speaking to msnbc.com.

"This region (northern Greenland) is experiencing temperatures which are abnormally warm ... I think the far northwest of Greenland is seeing a kind of new regime of climate," he added.