NASA Airborne Expedition Chases Arctic Sea Ice Questions

July 16, 2009

Sonja Alexander
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1761


Ruth Dasso Marlaire
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
650-604-4709


Jim Scott
University of Colorado at Boulder
303-492-3114


RELEASE: 09-167

NASA AIRBORNE EXPEDITION CHASES ARCTIC SEA ICE QUESTIONS

WASHINGTON -- A small NASA aircraft completed its first successful
science flight Thursday as part of an expedition to study the
receding Arctic sea ice and improve understanding of its life cycle
and the long-term stability of the Arctic ice cover. The mission
continues through July 24.

NASA's Characterization of Arctic Sea Ice Experiment, known as CASIE,
began a series of unmanned aircraft system flights in coordination
with satellites. Working with the University of Colorado and its
research partners, NASA is using the remotely-piloted aircraft to
image thick, old slabs of ice as they drift from the Arctic Ocean
south through Fram Strait -- which lies between Greenland and
Svalbard, Norway -- into the North Atlantic Ocean.

NASA's Science Instrumentation Evaluation Remote Research Aircraft,
or
SIERRA, will weave a pattern over open ocean and sea ice to map and
measure ice conditions below cloud cover to as low as 300 feet.

"Our project is attempting to answer some of the most basic questions
regarding the most fundamental changes in sea ice cover in recent
years," said James Maslanik, a research professor at the University
of Colorado at Boulder, and principal investigator for the NASA
mission. "Our analysis of satellite data shows that in 2009 the
amount of older ice is just 12 percent of what it was in 1988 -- a
decline of 74 percent. The oldest ice types now cover only 2 percent
of the Arctic Ocean as compared to 20 percent during the 1980s."

SIERRA, laden with scientific instruments, travels long distances at
low altitudes, flying below the clouds. The aircraft has high
maneuverability and slow flight speed. SIERRA's relatively large
payload, approximately 100 pounds, combined with a significant range
of 500 miles and small size of 20 ft. wingspan makes it the ideal
aircraft for this expedition.

The mission is conducted from the Ny-Alesund research base on the
island of Svalbard, Norway, located near the northeastern tip of
Greenland. Mission planners are using satellite data to direct
flights of the aircraft.

"Today, we demonstrated the utility of small- to medium-class
unmanned
aircraft systems for gathering science data in remote harsh
environments during the CASIE mission," said Matt Fladeland, CASIE
project and SIERRA manager at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett
Field, Calif.

The aircraft observations will be complemented by NASA satellite
large-scale views of many different features of the Arctic ice. The
Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard NASA's Aqua
satellite will be used to identify the ice edge location, ice
features of interest, and cloud cover. Other sensors, such as the
Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer -- Earth Observing System on
Aqua and the Quick Scatterometer can penetrate cloud cover and
analyze the physical properties of ice. By using multiple types of
satellite data, in conjunction with the high resolution aircraft
products, more can be learned about ice conditions than is possible
by using one or two data analysis methods.

NASA's CASIE mission supports a larger NASA-funded research effort
titled "Sea Ice Roughness as an Indicator of Fundamental Changes in
the Arctic Ice Cover: Observations, Monitoring, and Relationships to
Environmental Factors." The project also supports the goals of the
International Polar Year, a major international scientific research
effort involving many NASA research efforts to study large-scale
environmental change in Earth's polar regions.

The CASIE expedition is providing mission updates online at:

http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/CASIE

http://twitter.com/NASA_CASIE

For more information about NASA's Characterization of Arctic Sea Ice
Experiment, visit:

http://www.espo.nasa.gov/casie

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