Transcripts of Southeast_glaciers_ForwardCam_youtube_hq

Flying low through glacier valleys like these in southeast Greenland is one way that researchers with NASA's Operation IceBridge study these massive rivers of ice. In this video from a camera mounted in the cockpit, we see what IceBridge's pilots see as they fly the P-3B airborne laboratory over the glacier’s main flow line. While rugged mountains pass by on both sides, IceBridge scientists use onboard laser, radar and camera instruments to measure ice surface elevation and thickness and map the shape of the glacier valley below.The view from the P-3 soon changes as the glacier empties into a fjord and then the open ocean. Steep valley walls and jagged rocks give way to broad horizons, solid and broken sea ice and, frequently, icebergs that had previously calved, or broken off, of the glacier. Returning from the ocean, we see an ice-choked end abruptly at the calving front of another glacier, and the many crevasses in the ice that indicate the glacier’s flow toward the sea. 

[music] 

[music]