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Looking for facts and information? See About the Cryosphere.
On Thin Ice:
Expedition to a Crumbling Ice Shelf
Scientists blog from Antarctica and provide a glimpse of what it's like to do research in the field. Read their blog ...
Current Conditions
Icelights: Answers to your burning questions about ice and climate
What's hot in the news around climate and sea ice and what are scientists talking about now? Read more...
What is the Cryosphere?
When scientists talk about the cryosphere, they mean the places on Earth where water is in its solid form, frozen into ice or snow. Read more ...
NASA Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) at NSIDC
NASA's Operation IceBridge Aircraft Missions
The portal has been updated to enhance the functionality of the map interface. Read about the changes in this article and explore the portal now.
Note: The portal is currently supported in Firefox 3.6+, Chrome 6.0+, or Safari 3.0+ browsers.
The NSIDC DAAC manages data for products derived from the NASA Operation IceBridge aircraft missions, and implements tools and services extending the uses of IceBridge data products.
Operation IceBridge, initiated in 2009, collects airborne remote sensing measurements to bridge the gap between NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) mission and the subsequent ICESat-2 mission.
Operation IceBridge mission observations and measurements include coastal Greenland, coastal Antarctica, the Antarctic Peninsula, interior Antarctica, the southeast Alaskan glaciers, and Antarctic and Arctic sea ice.
The NASA Operation IceBridge mission combines multiple instruments to map ice surface topography, bedrock topography beneath the ice sheets, grounding line position, ice and snow thickness, and sea ice distribution and freeboard. Data from laser altimeters and radar sounders are paired with gravimeter, magnetometer, mapping camera, and other data to provide dynamic, high-value, repeat measurements of rapidly-changing portions of land and sea ice.
NASA's page for latest Operation IceBridge campaign news
Ongoing ICESat-2 Mission
Main page of the ICESat/GLAS data project at NSIDC DAAC
European Space Agency (ESA) Earthnet Online page for the CryoSat ice mission
Title: Exploring NASA’s Operation IceBridge Data Sets Through National Snow and Ice Data Center's Data Portal to Visualize Changes in Polar Ice
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