We know ice is melting on the Earth’s poles.
We know ice is melting on the Earth’s poles. But how fast? New data gathered using a green laser in space is helping scientists track the melting ice and giving us a new elevated view of climate change.
NASA’s Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2), which launched in September 2018, uses this laser to measure the elevation of the surface of the Earth. The satellite, developed with help from scientists at the University of Texas at Austin’s Applied Research Laboratories, can track changes in the elevation of the planet’s polar ice sheets to within a fraction of an inch.
“This data is really helping us understand what is happening on our planet right now,” said Lori Magruder, a senior research scientist at UT Austin and the ICESat-2 science team lead. “The elevation changes that we’re able to measure over the ice sheets can help infer global sea level rise. And those models have been used to refine our ability to predict climate change.”
The ICESat-2 mission contributes to a record of polar height data gathered by the original ICESat mission from 2003 to 2009. But the ICESat-2 satellite is much more advanced. The original satellite took 2 billion elevation measurements during its six-year life span, a figure ICESat-2 surpassed in just its first week of operation.
Read more at University of Texas at Austin
