ESA and NASA Collaborate in CryoSat-2 Validation Campaign
21.04.2011 - Atmosphere & Space, Ice & Snow, Bi-polar
A thorough validation campaign is being carried out on the ground in the Arctic to support ESA's CryoSat ice mission. ESA’s Cryosat-2 satellite was launched last year to monitor changes in ice thickness.
The month-long expedition includes scientific teams from various organisations taking measurements in central Greenland, Svalbard, the Fram Strait, Devon Island, and offshore from the Canadian station Alert on Ellesmere Island in northern Canada. The aim of these in-situ ice and snow measurements on the ground and from the air is to ensure that CryoSat-2 is delivering accurate data.
As a part of its Operation IceBridge mission in the Arctic, NASA is surveying ice cover from the air as part of the collaborative validation effort. NASA's P-3 aircraft carried out joint flights with ESA planes as CryoSat-2 passed overhead and ground teams took simultaneous measurements on sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. In total, four planes took part in the campaign and flew over the same survey line over the Arctic sea ice.
One of the aircrafts involved in the campaign carries an instrument called ASIRAS, an instrument which was developed to mimic the radar altimeter CryoSat-2 uses to measure sea ice topography. The altimeter emits a series of radar pulses as the plane travels over the ice and snow surfaces, recording the faint return echoes from the surface. To complement the array, a Basler-67 from the Alfred Wegner Institute has an electromagnetic sensor called EM-Bird, which hangs below the plane close to the ground and measures ice thickness over the ground sites along the track Cryosat-2 takes.
Michael Studinger, Project Scientist for NASA's Operation IceBridge, said the collaborative effort "will create a landmark dataset to shed light on fundamental issues in remotely sensing sea ice," calling the project "a great example of what can be accomplished when many organisations and nations work together." Malcom Davidson, ESA's Cryosat Validation Manager, called the efforts "very rewarding" and "a demonstration of what can be achieved through collaboration with other agencies such as NASA."
