Tag Archives: Arctic
NASA JPL To Help Gather Sub Arctic Ice Data
NASA Space Technology NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory is working on a robotics project to help gather data from under the Antarctic ice.The current project is called IceNode and aims to deploy a fleet of autonomous robots that are capable of diving deep beneath the Antarctic ice shelves to gather valuable scientific data.The robots should provide insight into global warming and its effects on the ice sheets, which, if they melt, could cause a massive climate disaster across the planet, according to IceNode science lead and JPL climate scientist Ian Fenty:Weve been pondering how to surmount these technological and logistical challenges for years, and we think weve found a way. The goal is getting data directly at the ice-ocean melting interface, beneath the ice shelf.While IceNode’s Principal Investigator and JPL robotics engineer Paul Glick added:These robots...
NASA Returns to Arctic Studying Summer Sea Ice Melt
NASA Space Technology What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay in the Arctic, and a new NASA mission is helping improve data modeling and increasing our understanding of Earth’s rapidly changing climate. Changing ice, ocean, and atmospheric conditions in the northernmost part of Earth have a large impact on the entire planet. That’s because the Arctic region acts like Earth’s air conditioner.Much of the Sun’s energy is transported from tropical regions of our planet by winds and weather systems into the Arctic where it is then lost to space. This process helps cool the planet.The NASA-sponsored Arctic Radiation Cloud Aerosol Surface Interaction Experiment (ARCSIX) mission is flying three aircraft over the Arctic Ocean north of Greenland to study these processes. The aircraft are equipped with instruments to gather observations of surface sea ice, clouds, and...
