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OIB Summer/Fall 2017

Russell glacier, Greenland

Russell glacier, Greenland

Images of a couple of the smaller glacier systems between Helheim and Kangerdlussuaq from 28,000’

Smaller glacier systems between Helheim and Kangerdlussuaq from 28,000’

Images of a couple of the smaller glacier systems between Helheim and Kangerdlussuaq from 28,000’

Photos of smaller glacier systems between Helheim and Kangerdlussuaq from 28,000’

Frozen melt pond close to the ice edge, taken during climb out of Kangerlussuaq airport by the downlooking LVIS camera.

Frozen melt pond close to the ice edge, close to Kangerlussuaq

Views of coastal glaciers in SE Greenland, taken from 28,000'

Coastal glaciers in SE Greenland, taken from 28,000'

Views of coastal glaciers in SE Greenland, taken from 28,000'

Coastal glaciers in SE Greenland, taken from 28,000'

Photo of recently-formed crack in center of Petermann glacier, taken from 28,000' from the cockpit window of the B200-T

Petermann Glacier calving front and crack

Downlooking LVIS camera image of Zachariae Glacier calving fromt

Zachariae Glacier calving front

View from the window of the King Air from 28,000’ looking north whilst on the 79N glacier

Land, Vegetation and Ice Sensor

NASA’s Land, Vegetation and Ice Sensor (LVIS) is a wide-swath, high-altitude, full-waveform airborne laser altimeter and camera sensor suite designed to provide elevation and surface structure measurements over hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. LVIS is an efficient and cost-effective capability for mapping land, water, and ice surface topography, vegetation height and vertical structure, and surface dynamics. The LVIS Facility is comprised of two high-altitude scanning lidar systems plus cameras that have been integrated on numerous NASA, NSF, and commercial aircraft platforms providing a diverse and flexible capability to meet a broad range of science needs. The newest Facility lidar (LVIS-F) began operations in 2017 using a 4,000 Hz laser, and an earlier 1,000 Hz sensor built in 2010 has undergone various upgrades (LVIS-Classic). High-resolution, commercial off-the-shelf cameras are co-mounted with LVIS lidars providing geotagged image coverage across the LVIS swath. LVIS sensors have flown extensively for a wide range of science applications and have been installed on over a dozen different aircraft, most recently on NASA’s high-altitude Gulfstream-V jet based at Johnson Space Center

The LVIS lidars are full-waveform laser altimeters, meaning that the systems digitally record both the outgoing and reflected laser pulse shapes providing a true 3-dimensional record of the surface and centimeter-level range precision. Multiple science data products are available for each footprint, including the geolocated waveform vector, sub-canopy topography, canopy or structure height, surface complexity, and others. LVIS lidars map a ±6 degree wide data swath centered on nadir (e.g., at an operating altitude of 10 km, the data swath is 2 km wide). They are designed to fly at higher altitudes than what is typical for commercial lidars in order to map a wider swath with low incidence angles, avoid the need for terrain following, while operating at much higher speeds that maximize the range of the aircraft. Recent data campaigns include deployments to Antarctica, Greenland, Canada, Alaska, the conterminous US, Central America, French Guiana, and Gabon.

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