Operation IceBridge

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.While scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center managed the two larger yearly field campaigns in the Arctic and Antarctica, monitoring Alaskan glaciers fell on a smaller team based at the University of Fairbanks, Alaska. ||

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.While scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center managed the two larger yearly field campaigns in the Arctic and Antarctica, monitoring Alaskan glaciers fell on a smaller team based at the University of Fairbanks, Alaska. ||

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.While scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center managed the two larger yearly field campaigns in the Arctic and Antarctica, monitoring Alaskan glaciers fell on a smaller team based at the University of Fairbanks, Alaska. ||

Flying low over some of the most dramatic landscapes on the planet, a cadre of scientists and pilots have been measuring changes in Alaskan glaciers as part of NASA’s Operation IceBridge for almost a decade. The team has seen significant change in ice extent and thickness over that time. Data from the mission was used in a 2015 study that put numbers on the loss of Alaskan glaciers: 75 billion tons of ice every year from 1994 to 2013. Last summer, Chris Larsen and Martin Truffer, both of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, flew with University of Arizona's Jack Holt and University of Texas student Michael Christoffersen. || OIB_Alaska_Final.00010_print.jpg (1024x576) [109.9 KB] || OIB_Alaska_Final.00010_searchweb.png (320x180) [96.3 KB] || OIB_Alaska_Final.00010_thm.png (80x40) [6.8 KB] || OIB_Alaska_Final.mp4 (1920x1080) [939.1 MB] || YOUTUBE_1080_OIB_Alaska_Final_youtube_1080.mp4 (1920x1080) [977.3 MB] || OIB_Alaska_Final.webm (1920x1080) [76.9 MB] || OIB_Alaska_Final.en_US.srt [12.6 KB] || OIB_Alaska_Final.en_US.vtt [12.6 KB] ||