Mission: Stancomb Outboard

Priority: High

 

This new flight is designed to provides radar and lidar data along ICESat-2 ground tracks, mostly offshore of the grounding line of the Stancomb-Wills Glacier. This region has not been sampled by OIB prior to 2018.

 

A steadily improving forecast for this region and the Filchner Ice Shelf, but not yet clear enough elsewhere, meant that we selected this mission in a region that OIB had never before surveyed. A ramp pass at 2000 ft AGL was collected prior to the initial transit. Our weather assessment was quite consistent with that which we observed, but with none of the expected fog on the tongue. Low clouds dissipated as we approached the Stancomb-Willis Glacier Tongue. We extended the initial along-flow line by several minutes, so that we could cross the downstreammost ICESat-2 track and then beyond that by 70 seconds for a more useful gravity cross-over. We observed exceptionally large freeboards of some rifts at the end of that along-flow line. Otherwise, the flight proceeded smoothly and all lines/tracks were surveyed successfully. Winds were exceptionally light and generally less than 5 knots. A video crew from CBS News joined our flight and conducted several interviews during the course of the flight. A preliminary schedule has their segment(s) airing sometime next week (TBD). All instruments reported excellent data collection. ATM further experimented with Headwall data collection and better refined their acquisition procedure for it. 100% all around.

 

Attached images:

1. Map of today's mission (NASA / John Sonntag)

2. The transition from floating to grounded ice across Lyddan Ice Rise, east of Stancomb-Willis Glacier Tongue (Joe MacGregor / NASA)

3. A large rift bisecting part of the Stancomb-Willis Glacier Tongue (Aaron Wells / NASA)

4. Linette Boisvert being interviewed by Mark Phillips of CBS News onboard NASA's DC-8 (Jim Yungel / NASA)

5. An iceberg in the Weddell Sea surrounded by sea ice (Linette Boisvert / NASA)

6. Sea smoke near the terminus of Stancomb-Willis Glacier Tongue (Joe MacGregor / NASA)