Accompanied by two seasoned polar explorers, a joint ESA–NASA team set up camp on the ice as part of the 2014 campaign to validate measurements from CryoSat.
Read: Researchers Endure Artic Cold to Ensure Satellite Accuracy
The ground team took measurements of snow depth and ice depth as well as detailing ice properties. Coincident measurements were taken from aircraft, in many cases directly underneath CryoSat’s orbital path.
Venturing out on the sea ice north of Greenland as part of the 2014 campaign to validate measurements from CryoSat. Keeping an eye out for polar bears, the ground team took measurements of snow depth and ice depth as well as detailing ice properties. Along with data acquired from the air, these measurements are compared with data from CryoSat to ensure it is delivering true information about Earth’s changing ice.
As part of the 2014 Arctic campaign to validate data from ESA’s CryoSat mission, one of the aircraft towed a sensor called an EM-Bird. This is an electromagnetic sensor to survey ice thickness.
Measurements of ice thickness were taken very carefully to compare with those of CryoSat as part of the mission’s 2014 Arctic campaign.
