14 DAY TRIAL // For the past few years, NASA has been involved in an international cooperative effort to study the effects of climate change on the polar ice caps. Alternatively, science flights in the IceBridge mission are conducted both at the North and South Pole. The team has now just arrived in Antarctica.
Primarily, the project is conducted in order to continue the series of measurements that was begun using the NASA ICESat (Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite), which has since been retired. The project will continue at least until 2016, when ICESat-2 launches.
The first two flights of the current observations campaign were conducted over the Antarctic Peninsula. NASA uses a heavily-modified DC-8 airplane to conduct these studies. The science sorties were flown on October 12, from Punta Arenas, Chila.
“This mission is an exact repeat of two missions that we have flown in 2009 and 2010,” IceBridge scientist Michael Studinger wrote in a blog post. “The goal is to measure how much sea ice is being exported through the ‘gate’ connecting the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula with Cape Norvegia,” he adds.