Satellites and submarines give the skinny on sea ice thickness
This summer, a group of scientists and students — as well as a Canadian senator, a writer, and a filmmaker — set out from Resolute Bay, Canada, on the icebreaker Louis S. St-Laurent.
They were headed through the Northwest Passage, but instead of opening shipping lanes in the ice, they had gathered to open up new lines of thinking on Arctic science.
Among the participants in the shipboard workshop (hosted by Fisheries and Oceans Canada) was Ron Kwok of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
Kwok has long provided checkups on the health of Arctic sea ice — the frozen sea water floating within the Arctic Ocean basin.
He also knows that some important clues about ice changes can’t be seen from a ship.
Extending the Record
While satellites provide accurate and expansive coverage of ice in the Arctic Ocean, the records are relatively new.
Satellites have only monitored sea ice extent since 1973. NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) has been on the task sin