Topic: NASA’s Ice Cloud and Elevation Satellite

NASA finishes first ever Global Accounting of Fluctuating Freshwater Levels

March 4, 2021 |

Greenbelt, MD – To investigate humans’ impact on freshwater resources, scientists have now conducted the first global accounting of fluctuating water levels in Earth’s lakes and reservoirs – including ones previously too small to measure from space. 

The research, published March 3rd in the journal Nature, relied on NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite 2 (ICESat-2), launched in September 2018. 

Lake Mead, along the Colorado River. (National Park Service)

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NASA reports Greenland, Antarctica Ice Sheets Melting Six Times Faster Than in 1990s

March 17, 2020 |

Pasadena, CA – NASA says observations from 11 satellite missions monitoring the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have revealed that the regions are losing ice six times faster than they were in the 1990s.

If the current melting trend continues, the regions will be on track to match the “worst-case” scenario of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of an extra 6.7 inches (17 centimeters) of sea level rise by 2100.

An aerial view of the icebergs near Kulusuk Island, off the southeastern coastline of Greenland, a region that is exhibiting an accelerated rate of ice loss. (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

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NASA’s Operation IceBridge has explored Alaska’s Mountain Glaciers for almost a decade

April 2, 2019 |

NASA’s Earth Science News Team

Washington, D.C. – In Alaska, 5 percent of the land is covered by glaciers that are losing a lot of ice and contributing to sea level rise. To monitor these changes, a small team of NASA-funded researchers has been flying scientific instruments on a bright red, single-engine plane since spring 2009.

In almost a decade of operations, the Operation IceBridge Alaska team has more than doubled the number of mountain glaciers surveyed in the state known as “The Last Frontier.” Data from the mission has put numbers to the loss of Alaskan glaciers from 1994 to 2013: 75 gigatons of ice every year.

In Alaska, five percent of the land is covered by glaciers that are contributing to sea level rise in ways disproportionately large to their size. A small airborne campaign has been monitoring these changes since 2009. (NASA)

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NASA Satellite data reveals Amazon Rainforest Drought has long lasting effect

August 14, 2018 |

Written by Carol Rasmussen
NASA’s Earth Science News Team

Washington, D.C. – A single season of drought in the Amazon rainforest can reduce the forest’s carbon dioxide absorption for years after the rains return, according to a new study published in the journal Nature. This is the first study to quantify the long-term legacy of an Amazon drought.

A research team from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and other institutions used satellite lidar data to map tree damage and mortality caused by a severe drought in 2005. In years of normal weather, the undisturbed forest can be a natural carbon “sink,” absorbing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it puts back into it.

This image, taken during a September 2010 drought, shows a line of dead and damaged trees after a surface fire in the Amazon rainforest in western Brazil. When dryer-than-normal conditions exist, fires from the open edges encroach on the forests and burn dry and stressed trees. Under normal conditions, when the rainforests are wetter, this is far less common. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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NASA assessment shows Antarctica Ice Losses have Tripled since 2012, Sea Levels Rising Faster

June 15, 2018 |

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Ice losses from Antarctica have tripled since 2012, increasing global sea levels by 0.12 inch (3 millimeters) in that timeframe alone, according to a major new international climate assessment funded by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).

According to the study, ice losses from Antarctica are causing sea levels to rise faster today than at any time in the past 25 years. Results of the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise (IMBIE) were published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The Antarctic Peninsula from the air: although the mountains are plastered in snow and ice, measurements tell us that this region is losing ice at an increasing rate. (Pippa Whitehouse, University of Durham)

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NASA to launch Two Satellites focused on studying Earth’s Frozen Areas

March 28, 2018 |

Written by Patrick Lynch
NASA’s Earth Science News Team

Washington, D.C. – In 2018, NASA will intensify its focus on one of the most critical but remote parts of our changing planet with the launch of two new satellite missions and an array of airborne campaigns.

The space agency is launching these missions at a time when decades of observations from the ground, air, and space have revealed signs of change in Earth’s ice sheets, sea ice, glaciers, snow cover and permafrost. Collectively, scientists call these frozen regions of our planet the “cryosphere.”

In 2018, NASA is scheduled to launch two new satellite missions and conduct an array of field research that will enhance our view of Earth’s ice sheets, glaciers, sea ice, snow cover, and permafrost. Collectively, these frozen regions are known as the “cryosphere.” (NASA)

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NASA begins Study into Rapid Climate Change in Alaska and Northwestern Canada

September 1, 2015 |

Written by Alan Buis
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – As part of a broad effort to study the environmental and societal effects of climate change, NASA has begun a multi-year field campaign to investigate ecological impacts of the rapidly changing climate in Alaska and northwestern Canada, such as the thawing of permafrost, wildfires and changes to wildlife habitats.

The Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) will bring together on-the-ground research in Alaska and northwestern Canada with data collected by NASA airborne instruments, satellites and other agency programs, including the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2), and upcoming Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) and NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) missions.

NASA’s ABoVE campaign will combine field work, airborne surveys, satellite data and computer modeling to study the effects of climate change on Arctic and boreal ecosystems, such as this region at the base of the Alaska Range south of Fairbanks. (NASA/Ross Nelson)

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NASA Satellite Obervations helps determine how Glacier Mass reductions effect Sea Level Rise

May 22, 2013 |

Written by Alan Buis
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – A new study of glaciers worldwide using observations from two NASA satellites has helped resolve differences in estimates of how fast glaciers are disappearing and contributing to sea level rise.

The new research found glaciers outside of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, repositories of 1 percent of all land ice, lost an average of 571 trillion pounds (259 trillion kilograms) of mass every year during the six-year study period, making the ocean rise 0.03 inches (0.7 millimeters) per year.

The Aletschglacier in Switzerland is the largest valley glacier in the Alps. Its volume loss since the middle of the 19th century is well visible from the trimlines to the right of the image. (Credit: Frank Paul, University of Zurich)

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