OIB

For eleven years from 2009 through 2019, the planes of NASA’s Operation IceBridge flew above the Arctic, Antarctic and Alaska, gathering data on the height, depth, thickness, flow and change of sea ice, glaciers and ice sheets.

Mission: Cook-Ninnis 01
Priority: High

This mission is designed to survey the the Cook and Ninnis Glaciers, in conjunction with the Cook- Ninnis 02-04 flights. This particular flight surveys flux gates above the two glaciers, and one coast- parallel grid line, which lies almost entirely above the grounding line. The grid is designed to supplement earlier airborne measurements collected by the ICECAP Project, with our lines falling midway between the ICECAP lines.

Mission: Victoria Flowlines
Priority: High

This mission is designed to survey a series of glacier flowlines in Victoria Land. The glaciers include Lilie, Black, Canham, Rennick, and additional flowlines draining Evans Neve. Most of these areas are unmapped in terms of bedrock geometry, although we do repeat small sections of 2013 and 2017 OIB flights in the area. We also extend the Rennick 01/02 grid on the exit leg of this mission, in order to help fill a gap in bedrock measurements, which corresponds to an area of thinning identified by ICESat.

Mission: Moscow-Holmes Mopup
Priority: High

This mission consists of the leftovers from the high-priority Moscow 02 and Holmes-Frost 01/02 missions that could not be surveyed when those missions. Specifically, it includes the outboard bathymetry grid line of Holmes-Frost 02, the western bathymetry tie line of Holmes Frost 01, part of the inland fluxgate and a bathymetry tie line from Moscow 02.

Mission: Adelie-Clarie Gap 01
Priority: Low

This mission is designed to fill gaps in bedrock topography along the Adelie and Clarie Coasts, on a 10 km grid. The gaps are between previous ICECAP surveys in the region.

Mission: Denman 02
Priority: Medium

This mission is designed to survey the centerlines of the Denman and Scott Glaciers from the edge of the Shackleton Ice Shelf to points above their fastest-flowing regions.

Mission: Denman 01 Mopup
Priority: High

This mission is designed to survey the neighboring Denman and Scott Glaciers, specifically the region just upstream of their grounding lines, on a 10 km grid. The grid is designed to supplement earlier airborne measurements collected by the ICECAP project, specifically by interleaving halfway between their flight lines.

Mission: Racetrack Central
Priority: High

This mission is designed to fly three circuits of a “racetrack” pattern along a low-latency ICESat-2 ground track. The two legs of the racetrack are the “D” and “F” (strong TEP beams) of the selected RGT. The three circuits are designed to widen the composite swath of each leg, to improve the changes of coincident OIB and ICESat-2 measurements in the presence of ice drift.

Mission: Holmes-Frost 01
Priority: Medium

This mission is designed to survey the lower portions of the Holmes, De Haven and Frost Glaciers, their ice shelves, and the upper portion of Porpoise Bay beyond, all on a 10 km grid. This grid is designed to supplement earlier airborne measurements collected by the ICECAP Project. We also fly a tie line, designed along an ICESat-2 track. This grid is supplemented by the grid flown in the companion Holmes-Frost 02 mission.