The NASA-sponsored Arctic Radiation Cloud Aerosol Surface Interaction Experiment (ARCSIX) mission is flying three aircraft over the Arctic Ocean north of Greenland to study these processes. The aircraft are equipped with instruments to gather observations of surface sea ice, clouds, and aerosol particles, which affect the Arctic energy budget and cloud properties. The energy budget is the balance between the energy that Earth receives from the Sun and the energy the Earth loses to outer space.
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Second Stop: The 2019 Arctic Tundra Fire in Greenland
July 29th, 2024 by Sonja Granqvist/University of Helsinki A combined team from the University of Helsinki (Environmental Change Research Unit), the Finnish Meteorological Institute (Atmospheric Composition Unit), and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Climate & Ecosystems Change) was on its way again to gather groundbreaking data on carbon and aerosol emissions from increasing fires in the northern high latitudes. Our journey began in boreal Quebec and now continues to Arctic Greenland.
NASA Mission Flies Over Arctic to Study Sea Ice Melt Causes
It’s not just rising air and water temperatures influencing the decades-long decline of Arctic sea ice. Clouds, aerosols, even the bumps and dips on the ice itself can play a role. To explore how these factors interact and impact sea ice melting, NASA is flying two aircraft equipped with scientific instruments over the Arctic Ocean north of Greenland this summer. The first flights of the field campaign, called ARCSIX (Arctic Radiation Cloud Aerosol Surface Interaction Experiment), successfully began taking measurements on May 28.
