Using data from NASA's Operation IceBridge airborne campaign, a large liquid water reservoir buried underneath compacted snow and ice in Greenland has now been mapped.
The bedrock hidden beneath the thick ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica has intrigued researchers for years. Scientists are interested in how the shape of this hidden terrain affects how ice moves -- a key factor in making predictions about the future of these massive ice reservoirs and their contribution to sea level rise in a changing climate.
Making the current NASA Operation IceBridge campaign – the first to ever operate directly from Antarctica – a reality took a year and a half of planning and coordination, finishing with weeks of intense work both at home and in Antarctica.
Researchers with NASA's Operation IceBridge kicked off this year's Antarctic campaign with three consecutive science flights.
The IceBridge mission will conduct daily survey flights through Nov. 26 on a NASA P-3 research aircraft from a base of operations at McMurdo Station.
Members of the IceBridge team arrived at McMurdo Station Nov. 12, 2013 aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport aircraft.
Operation IceBridge will carry out a first-ever campaign to gather data on changes in Greenland's ice following the summer melt season.
A study using data primarily from NASA's Operation IceBridge has found a canyon in the bedrock beneath Greenland's ice sheet that is longer than the Grand Canyon.
For the first time ever, NASA's Operation IceBridge will fly scientific surveys out of McMurdo Station, Antarctica.
This week a European Earth-observing satellite confirmed that a large iceberg broke off of Pine Island Glacier, one of Antarctica's largest and fastest moving ice streams. The rift that led to the new iceberg was discovered in October 2011 during NASA's Operation IceBridge flights over the continent.
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