Observing how land ice is changing is critical because it tells us how ice melt is affecting global sea levels, and also allows us to investigate, and better understand, how climate change is affecting these vast, yet remote, ice bodies. Thanks to ESA satellite CryoSat-2, advances in radar altimetry instrument technology and processing now allow us to study the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets in unprecedented detail. By combining CryoSat’s data with that from older altimetry missions, we have been able to chart the increasing contribution of the ice sheets to global sea levels and investigate how key glaciers have behaved since 1992.
Related Projects
IMBIE – Ice Sheet Mass Balance Intercomparison Project
BIOPOLE – Biogeochemical processes and ecosystem function in a changing polar system.
TerraFIRMA – Future impacts risks and mitigation actions
