Mission: East Glaciers 01
Priority: Medium

This mission maps the centerlines of several glaciers on the central east coast of Greenland. This particular draft captures the centerlines of six glaciers: DeGeer, Jaette, Nordenskiold, Wahlenberg, Violin and Nord Glaciers. The first two were originally flown during the 2009 OIB campaign, and all were flown in 2012. The Violin centerline passes within 1 km of two PROMICE sites. We transit to the area along a line connecting the DYE2 and GRIP drill sites, and return along a historical ATM line dating to 1993. We also overfly the ICESat 0412 Summit calibration line, plus two new ICESat-2 lines at Summit.

A challenging cloud base and forecast meant for an unexpected mission selection today, which had the most improving forecast. Intermittent clouds were encountered during the survey across the ice sheet toward the east coast, causing intermittent laser altimetry loss. Little turbulence was encountered during the mission. At the end of the third loop, rather than repeating a survey of the south fork of Hamberg Glacier done just a few minutes prior, we flew over its northern fork, which is likely previously unsurveyed. Despite the relatively nearby passes to Summit, we did not observe the camp outside through several ICESat-2 lines, but eventually did spot it at nadir, and altimetry collection was intermittent west of the divide on our return leg and over DYE-2/Raven. All instruments performed well. We conducted a 3000-ft ramp pass. Several members of the NSF Firn2018 traverse joined this mission.