Operation IceBridge Flight Paths - Antarctica Fall 2010 Campaign

  • Released Wednesday, October 20, 2010
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Operation IceBridge — a NASA airborne mission to observe changes in Earth's rapidly changing polar land ice and sea ice — is soon to embark on its fourth field season in October. The mission is now paralleled by a campaign to bring data to researchers as quickly as possible and to accelerate the analysis of those changes and how they may affect people and climate systems.

Data from campaigns flown prior to the inception of IceBridge will also be archived at NSIDC. These include data from the Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM) instrument; mountain glacier data from the University of Alaska Fairbanks; and deep radar bedmap data from University of Kansas radar instruments. Combined with NSIDC's existing complete archive of data from the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) instrument aboard ICESat, researchers will be able to access a rich repository of complementary measurements.

IceBridge, a six-year NASA mission, is the largest airborne survey of Earth's polar ice ever flown. It will yield an unprecedented three-dimensional view of Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets, ice shelves and sea ice. These flights will provide a yearly, multi-instrument look at the behavior of the rapidly changing features of the Greenland and Antarctic ice.

Data collected during IceBridge will help scientists bridge the gap in polar observations between NASA's ICESat — in orbit since 2003 — and ICESat-2, planned for late 2015. ICESat stopped collecting science data in 2009, making IceBridge critical for ensuring a continuous series of observations.

Twelve of the high priority flight plans from the 2010 Antarctic campaign are displayed.

Same animation as above without the text overlay

Operation Ice Bridge is monitoring changes in three key glaciers by overflying the lines above the Thwaites Glacier, the Smith Glacier, and Kohler Glacier.

Operation Ice Bridge is monitoring changes in three key glaciers by overflying the lines above the Thwaites Glacier, the Smith Glacier, and Kohler Glacier.

This flight path is primarily intended to monitor changes in the surgace elevation of the Thwaites Glacier, Smith Glacier and Kohler Glacier while also collecting depth, accumulation and gravity data from these area. This flight path was originally flown by the NASA/CECS/Armada de Chile project in 2002.

This flight path is primarily intended to monitor changes in the surgace elevation of the Thwaites Glacier, Smith Glacier and Kohler Glacier while also collecting depth, accumulation and gravity data from these area. This flight path was originally flown by the NASA/CECS/Armada de Chile project in 2002.

This flight path is dedicated to overflying the ICESat 33 day ground tracks over the Thwaites Glacier and is a repeat path from the Operation Ice Bridge flight on October 18, 2009.

This flight path is dedicated to overflying the ICESat 33 day ground tracks over the Thwaites Glacier and is a repeat path from the Operation Ice Bridge flight on October 18, 2009.

This flight path over the Bellingshausen Sea is intended to mesh with the efforts of the ICEBELL ship-based project. This path is based on moderate ice conditions. Modifications to this path have been designed if the ice conditions are either heavy or light.

This flight path over the Bellingshausen Sea is intended to mesh with the efforts of the ICEBELL ship-based project. This path is based on moderate ice conditions. Modifications to this path have been designed if the ice conditions are either heavy or light.

This flight path fly over the major glacier that flows into the Eltanin Bay. This flight follows the same path as IceBridge mission flown on November 3, 2009.

This flight path fly over the major glacier that flows into the Eltanin Bay. This flight follows the same path as IceBridge mission flown on November 3, 2009.

This flight is intended to map the su-ice shelf bathymetry of the George VI ice shelf.

This flight is intended to map the su-ice shelf bathymetry of the George VI ice shelf.

This flight path is intended to provide wide-swath altimetry coverage of the Crane Glacier and surrounding areas. The path will follow the same path flown on November 5, 2009.

This flight path is intended to provide wide-swath altimetry coverage of the Crane Glacier and surrounding areas. The path will follow the same path flown on November 5, 2009.

This path will map the Crosson Ice Shelf and the bathymetry of the cavity beneath the floating ice tongue, using gravimeter supplemented by radar and altimetry measurements.

This path will map the Crosson Ice Shelf and the bathymetry of the cavity beneath the floating ice tongue, using gravimeter supplemented by radar and altimetry measurements.

This mission is a partial repeat of Ice Bridge Flight on October 30, 2009.

This mission is a partial repeat of Ice Bridge Flight on October 30, 2009.

This flight will provide measurements of ice thickness and surface elevation beyond that provided by previous Pine Island Glacier IceBridge flights, primarily to sample the numerous tributaries feeding into the main Pine Island Glacier trunk.

This flight will provide measurements of ice thickness and surface elevation beyond that provided by previous Pine Island Glacier IceBridge flights, primarily to sample the numerous tributaries feeding into the main Pine Island Glacier trunk.

The purpose of this flight is to measure gradients in sea ice freeboard (and thickness) along the "gate" connecting the tip of the Peninsula with Cape Norvegia. This gate is the line across which ice export is typically computed, and the export from this area is a major contributor to total ice volume exported into the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.

The purpose of this flight is to measure gradients in sea ice freeboard (and thickness) along the "gate" connecting the tip of the Peninsula with Cape Norvegia. This gate is the line across which ice export is typically computed, and the export from this area is a major contributor to total ice volume exported into the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.

This page was originally published on Wednesday, October 20, 2010.
This page was last updated on Sunday, November 12, 2023 at 10:02 PM EST.

Missions

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Series

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Datasets used in this visualization

  • Band Combination 3, 2, 1 [Landsat-7: ETM+]

    ID: 537
    Sensor: ETM+

    This dataset can be found at: http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/about/wrs.html

    See all pages that use this dataset

  • LIMA (Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica) [Landsat-7: ETM+]

    ID: 599
    Type: Mosaic Sensor: ETM+

    Mosaicing to avoid clouds produced a high quality, nearly cloud-free benchmark data set of Antarctica for the International Polar Year from images collected primarily during 1999-2003.

    This dataset can be found at: http://lima.nasa.gov/

    See all pages that use this dataset

  • MOA (MODIS Mosaic of Antarctica (MOA) Image Map) [Terra and Aqua: MODIS]

    ID: 627
    Type: Mosaic Sensor: MODIS

    Staff from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and the University of New Hampshire have assembled two digital image maps of surface morphology and optical snow grain size that cover the Antarctic continent and its surrounding islands. The MODIS Mosaic of Antarctica (MOA) image maps are derived from composites of 260 MODIS (Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) orbit swaths acquired between 20 November 2003 and 29 February 2004. The MOA provides a cloud-free view of the ice sheet, ice shelves, and land surfaces, and a quantitative measure of optical snow grain size for snow- or ice-covered areas. All land areas larger than a few hundred meters that are south of 60° S are included in the mosaic, as well as persistent fast ice regions and some grounded icebergs present near the coast in the 2003-2004 austral summer. The MOA surface morphology image map is derived from digitally processed MODIS Band 1 data. The optical snow grain size image is compiled using a normalized ratio of atmospherically corrected, calibrated band radiance data from Bands 1 and 2.

    This dataset can be found at: http://nsidc.org/data/nsidc-0280.html

    See all pages that use this dataset

  • Operation Ice Bridge Flight Paths

    ID: 657

    NASA DC-8 Flight Path

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Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.