Using Radarsat's special sensors to take images at night & to peer through clouds, NASA researchers can now see the complete ice cover of the Arctic. This allows tracking of any shifts and changes, in unprecedented detail, over the course of an entire winter. The radar-generated, high-resolution images are up to 100 times better than those taken by previous satellites.
Using this new information, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, can generate comprehensive maps of Arctic sea ice thickness for the first time. "Before we knew only the extent of the ice cover," said Dr. Ronald Kwok, JPL principal investigator of a project called Sea Ice Thickness Derived From High Resolution Radar Imagery. "We also knew that the sea ice extent had decreased over the last 20 years, but we knew very little about ice thickness."
"Since sea ice is very thin, about 3 meters (10 ft) or less,"Kwok explained, "it is very sensitive to climate change."
Until now, observations of polar sea ice thickness have been available for specific areas, but not for the entire polar region.
The new radar mapping technique has also given scientists a close look at how the sea ice cover grows and contorts over time. "Using this new data set, we have the first estimates of how much ice has been produced & where it formed during the winter. We have never been able to do this before," said Kwok. "Through our radar maps of the Arctic Ocean, we can actually see ice breaking apart and thin ice growth in the new openings."
RADARSAT gives researchers a piece of the overall puzzle every three days by creating a complete image of the Arctic. NASA scientists then put those puzzle pieces together to create a time-lapsed view of this remote and inhospitable region. So far, they have processed one season's worth of images.
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