NASA: DOES ICE MELT?

I have never been a big fan of 'space travel', much less NASA!

Space exploration is a FRILL and at this moment in time, FRILL's are not a fiscal priority.......and studying ICE falls well below space exploration!

Pull the plug on NASA!

Oldcatman
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****NASA Launches Mission To Study Arctic Ice!
(Six-Year Study Looking Into Changes In Earth's Climate.)

DENVER -- NASA has just embarked on the most recent leg of Operation IceBridge, a six-year project dedicated to learn more about the Earth's polar regions.

This unprecedented project makes use of observations taken from on board an airplane rather than via satellites. According to NASA, Operation IceBridge is the largest airborne survey of Earth's polar ice ever flown.

While sea ice and glaciers may be thousands of miles away from Colorado, the health of the polar regions is a good indicator of the health of the entire planet. By studying the ice sheets that form in Greenland, Antarctica, Canada and Alaska, they can have a better understanding of how they might change in the future as the climate changes.
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Dr. Tom Wagner is a NASA arctic scientist involved with the mission. When asked why the polar ice caps are important, he explained, "They are important for two reasons: No. 1 is sea level rise. As the ice on land begins to melt, it flows into the ocean, and causes the sea level to rise. Right now the sea level is rising about a tenth of an inch per year, and about half of that is coming from the melting of polar ice. Here you can think of the sea ice as a hat in a mirror on the top of the earth. As that ice melts back, sunlight, instead of hitting the ice, instead hits the dark ocean and gets absorbed and causes it to warm up."

The spring is crucial for investigating the ice thickness. During the colder winter months the ice sheets grow, but in the summer months they recede.

"This time of year is when it should be at its maximum. It looks like it has grown out smaller and thinner than it's ever been before. We watch this really closely to see the coupling between the ice and the atmosphere. Also, we have seen the glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica, they look to be speeding up and getting thinner. We're going out an mapping those changes," Wagner said.

Wagner also added, "We are all connected in one great big global system, and as you make changes in such a fundamental part of the system, you change global climate and North American and European weather."

Copyright 2011 by TheDenverChannel
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