NASA Flies Mission to Map Ice Cover Across Antarctica, Live-Tweets the Whole Thing

Just a quick suggestion: follow NASA on twitter. Today, scientists from its IceBridge mission embarked on an 11-hour flight over West Antarctica, and they live-tweeted the whole thing. With pics and a Q+A session to boot.

IceBridge is the largest survey of Earth’s polar ice cover ever attempted. According to NASA, over six years, it will “yield an unprecedented three-dimensional view of Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets, ice shelves and sea ice” and will “provide a yearly, multi-instrument look at the behavior of the rapidly changing features of the Greenland and Antarctic ice.”

In addition to satellite monitoring from the aptly named ICE, that means plane-based missions, too. Like today’s trip to the Ronne Ice Shelf.

This is our longest transit flight so far this year to our target: the Ronne Ice Shelf grounding line. twitter.com/NASA_ICE/statu…

— NASA ICE (@NASA_ICE) November 1, 2012

They started early.

A great day for a flight — and a rainbow! — this morning at the Punta Arenas airport. Here’s the NASA DC-8. twitter.com/NASA_ICE/statu…

— NASA ICE (@NASA_ICE) November 1, 2012

Meet the crew.

We are on our way to Antarctica! Left Punta Arenas at 8:08 ET, thanks to these guys — NASA DC-8 pilots. twitter.com/NASA_ICE/statu…

— NASA ICE (@NASA_ICE) November 1, 2012

They outlined their flight path:

Flight path for today’s #IceBridge mission, Ronne Grounding Line East. twitter.com/NASA_ICE/statu…

— NASA ICE (@NASA_ICE) November 1, 2012

Replete with helpful geographical contextualizers.

To give you a sense of scale, here’s a US map over Antarctica. Today we’re headed for Montana, roughly. twitter.com/NASA_ICE/statu…

— NASA ICE (@NASA_ICE) November 1, 2012

The NASA scientists discuss the mission at length:

We’ve just turned on all our science instruments to begin collecting data as we approach the Ronne Ice Shelf.

— NASA ICE (@NASA_ICE) November 1, 2012

Our target is the Ronne Ice Shelf ‘grounding line’: the area where a glacier disconnects from bedrock & starts flowing into the sea.

— NASA ICE (@NASA_ICE) November 1, 2012

We are right now flying over a subglacial lake, taking a close look beneath the ice with radar to confirm what satellites have seen.

— NASA ICE (@NASA_ICE) November 1, 2012

Subglacial lakes are the plumbing system of the ice sheet. More info on them will help us understand the behavior of the ice sheet.

— NASA ICE (@NASA_ICE) November 1, 2012

During the Q+A, they answered a few questions from followers, including mine:

#asknasa @bcmerchant Signs of climate change we see in Antarctica: changes in height of ice surface, sea ice thickness, snow cover.

— NASA ICE (@NASA_ICE) November 1, 2012

And you get a sense of the scenery—they can’t post many pics live, because it turns out that there just isn’t enough bandwith in the middle of Antarctica to upload hi-res photos.

Crossing Alexander Island now. Here’s a satellite view from the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica. twitter.com/NASA_ICE/statu…

— NASA ICE (@NASA_ICE) November 1, 2012

Satellite view of where we are now; that’s big Berkner Island, top left. Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA) twitter.com/NASA_ICE/statu…

— NASA ICE (@NASA_ICE) November 1, 2012

And how’d it all go? Better than expected.

#IceBridge lead scientist: “Good flight. Even got additional high-altitude data on the transit lines over targets of opportunity.”

— NASA ICE (@NASA_ICE) November 1, 2012

Another #IceBridge Antarctic flight in the bag! Time to look at new data on the 4hr flight to Chile. Thx for being part of our adventure!

— NASA ICE (@NASA_ICE) November 1, 2012

There you have it. An entire arduous Antarctic science expedition laid out, in real-time, in a few hundred characters. Not a bad way to kill an afternoon.