Ice sheets are a key component of the Earth system, impacting on global sea level, ocean circulation and bio-geochemical processes. Significant quantities of liquid water are being produced and transported at the ice sheet surface, base, and beneath its floating sections, and this water is in turn interacting with the ice sheet itself. Surface meltwater …
The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the global average, with consequences felt across the whole planet. A better scientific understanding of the complexities of the fragile Arctic environment is critical for policy decisions on climate-change mitigation and adaptation, and for setting up a framework for managing Arctic development sustainably. The Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory …
Why has Antarctic sea ice experienced a small increase in extent over the past decades in stark contrast to the rapid decline observed in the Arctic? What role are the Southern Ocean and sea ice playing in controlling the Deep Water formation and thermohaline circulation and the melting of the Antarctic ice shelves and sea …
Lack of in-situ measurements of ice temperature (boreholes) limit our capabilities to understand ice sheet dynamics. Researchers combined L-band (1.4 GHz) passive microwave observations from SMOS over Antarctica with glaciological and emission models to infer information on glaciological properties of the ice sheet at various depths, including temperature. Comparison with existing models showed that differences …
7 years of CryoSat-2, jointly with other satellite altimetry data allowed scientists from DTU Space to develop an altimetric gravity model and exploit it to derive the first ever Arctic bathymetry map predicted from marine gravity. This has been combined with the existing IBCAO bathymetry map (derived from sparse ship soundings) to create a new …
The A+5 study belongs to the STSE ARCTIC+ cluster of projects and specifically contributes to the Year of Polar Prediction (YoPP). A+5 is constructing a flexible system for Arctic Mission Benefit Analysis (ArcMBA) that evaluates in a mathematically rigorous fashion the observational constraints imposed by individual and groups of EO (and in situ) data products …
Ice sheet dynamics is strongly related to basal melting and geothermal heat flow, which in turn is influenced by crustal thickness variations. On the other hand, the lithosphere of the Antarctic continent is still poorly known. Different datasets (airborne gravity and magnetic measurements, seismological campaigns) exist but mostly suffer from limited spatial coverage over large …
Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) is a key indicator of the freshwater fluxes and an important variable to understand the changes the Arctic is facing. However, salinity in-situ measurements are very sparse in the Arctic region. For this reason, remote sensing salinity measurements (currently provided by L-band radiometry satellites, SMOS and SMAP) are of special relevance …
The loss of ice from Antarctica is one of the principal causes of contemporary sea level rise. Tracking the changes that are currently occurring across this remote and inaccessible continent requires systematic satellite monitoring programmes. From these unique observational platforms, robust long-term climate records can be developed, which help scientists to understand and to predict …
The project will investigate Northern Hemisphere methane (CH4) sources and their connection to the soil freezing and thawing at high latitudes. We will innovatively combine methods for monitoring of CH4 (methane) emissions in the Northern Hemisphere by applying both data from Earth Observing (EO) satellites and global atmospheric methane inversion model estimates. The EO data …
