Arctic Sea Ice

Live blog: CryoSat results

This was the live coverage of the whole event. Please discuss below.

---

Refresh this page manually (F5)

On the ESA homepage it says:

Watch online: CryoSat results

Live from the Royal Society in London, watch the unveiling of the first map of the winter 2010–11 changes in Arctic sea-ice thickness measured by ESA’s CryoSat satellite. Join the event via live web stream Tuesday starting at 07:30 GMT (09:30 CEST – 08:30 UK time).

9.31: I have just managed to connect and am waiting for the broadcast to start.

9.32: Broadcast has started.

9.35: This is the audience:

9.37: It has started. David Williams from the UK Space Agency is doing a short introduction. Followed by David Willets, Minister of University and Education. Lauds the UK Space Agency, lauds Great Britain. :-)

9.45: It's Volker Liebig's turn, director of Earth Observation Programmes from ESA. Congratulates UK Space Agency with 50 year anniversary. Jumps to Arctic Sea Ice immediately, shows consecutive extent records. Shows Stroeve's graph of trend deviation from IPCC models. Arctic important for climate change, but also geopolitically and for shipping.

New ice thickness map of the Arctic unveiled

From the ESA webpage:

The first map of sea-ice thickness from ESA’s CryoSat mission was revealed today at the Paris Air and Space Show. This new information is set to change our understanding of the complex relationship between ice and climate.
 
From an altitude of just over 700 km and reaching unprecedented latitudes of 88º, CryoSat has spent the last seven months delivering precise measurements to study changes in the thickness of Earth’s ice.

Check out their first map of sea ice thickness data (for Jan/Feb 2011) that they made to show what will eventually be the deal:

I want to get this out quickly, so I haven't checked yet to compare this image with the ice thickness models. But I will at some later point.

It's important to stress that however exciting all of this is, we're still some way off of 100% accurate data. Calibration will be an ongoing issue and as CryoSat-2 has now gone into its second year of data delivery and a substantial time series is being built up, its true value will start to emerge more and more.

Ice thickness models 2

As promised I'm returning to the sea ice thickness models I wrote about two weeks ago, highlighting some of the current differences between PIPS, PIOMAS and TOPAZ. The satellite that will give us a definitive answer on ice thickness and volume, CryoSat-2, is currently being calibrated with the help of surveys by ESA and NASA. It will take some more time before definite data will be made publicly available, so in the meantime we'll continue looking at what sea ice thickness models have told us so far.

PIPS 2.0 2004-2011

PIPS 2.0 (Polar Ice Prediction System) has an excellent archive, so I have retrieved all the ice thickness images from the period 2004-2011 and put them side by side (click for a larger image):

Breaking: CryoSat ice data now open to all!

I figured this would be worth de-hibernating for (hat-tip Gas Glo). From the ESA homepage:

1 February 2011

Scientists can now tap into a flow of new data that will help to determine exactly how Earth's ice is changing. This information from ESA's CryoSat mission is set to make a step change in our understanding of the complex relationship between ice and climate.
 
Considering the loss of the original CryoSat satellite during launch in 2005, scientists around the world have had a long wait for information on ice thickness – making the release even more of a milestone for the mission.

ESA's CryoSat Mission Manager Tommaso Parrinello announced the release at the CryoSat Validation workshop currently taking place. He said, "We are pleased to announce this important milestone, which comes only few weeks after the end of the commissioning phase.

"As of today, the international science community will have free and easy access to all of the measurements from CryoSat. This will amount to a unique dataset to determine the impact climate change is having on Earth's ice fields." 

 

CryoSat's polar orbit reaches latitudes of 88°. This orbit brings it closer to the poles than previous Earth observation satellites, covering an additional 4.6 million sq km – an area larger than all 27 European Union member states put together.

Credits: ESA /AOES Medialab

Continue reading at the ESA homepage...