The Arctic is getting greener and wetter,
warming roughly twice as fast as the rest of the planet.
This summer, NASA scientists took a bird’s eye view…several of them, in fact…
to study changes in the region.
As part of the Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment, or ABoVE,
scientists from NASA and partner organizations flew a total of 10 planes over Alaska and Canada
to gather important instrument data, measuring everything from
carbon in the atmosphere to water levels in lakes and rivers and thawing permafrost.
These data will be combined with measurements taken from field sites
to get a comprehensive picture of environmental change in the Arctic.
On the Active Sensing of Carbon dioxide Emissions over Nights, Days and Seasons, or ASCENDS,
experiment, NASA’s DC-8 plane flew big looping spirals
over Alaska and Canada to measure carbon dioxide and methane released into the atmosphere.
Scientists down on the tundra
are looking for sources and sinks for this carbon dioxide and methane.
NASA’s partner organizations are studying emissions from thawing permafrost,
using plexiglass boxes that sit directly on the ground
as well as small towers that measure how carbon dioxide, methane and energy
move from the land surface to the atmosphere and back.
Attacking the research from multiple vantage points helps the scientists in the air
ensure that their instruments are functioning properly, and tests them against known measurements.
In addition, it can help the science teams
pinpoint the potential causes of changes their instruments read.
For the ASCENDS team, that may mean determining if carbon spikes they see in the air
are from wildfires or organic materials decomposing underground.
With the summer over in the Arctic, the ABoVE team is finished with the second year
of research in the region. Next summer, they’ll be back in the field to collect another round of data.
The campaign is designed to run for 10 years
to provide a look at long-term trends caused by the warming climate.