Earth  ID: 12810

New NASA Satellite Reveals Profiles of Ice, Forests and Oceans

Less than three months into its mission, NASA’s Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2, or ICESat-2, is already exceeding scientists’ expectations. The satellite is measuring the height of sea ice to within an inch, tracing the terrain of previously unmapped Antarctic valleys, surveying remote ice sheets, and peering through forest canopies and shallow coastal waters.


With each pass of the ICESat-2 satellite, the mission is adding to datasets tracking Earth’s rapidly changing ice. Researchers are ready to use the information to study sea level rise resulting from melting ice sheets and glaciers, and to improve sea ice and climate forecasts.


Credits

Ryan Fitzgibbons (USRA): Lead Producer
Kate Ramsayer (Telophase): Lead Writer
Thomas A. Neumann Ph.D. (NASA/GSFC): Lead Scientist
Ryan Fitzgibbons (USRA): Lead Editor
Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC): Visualizer
Adriana Manrique Gutierrez (USRA): Lead Animator
Joshua Stevens (SSAI): Lead Visualizer
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Keywords:
SVS >> Elevation data
SVS >> HDTV
SVS >> Launch
NASA Science >> Earth
SVS >> ICESat-2
SVS >> Photon