Tag: Cryosphere

ESSIC Assistant Research Scientist Kelly Brunt recently convened a two-day workshop–funded by the NSF and NASA–to bring together scientists to assess current polar research instrumentation and identify a means of communicating the nature and value of this instrumentation to the broader research community. The workshop entitled, “Instrumentation for Polar Glaciology and Geophysics Research (IPGGR),” was held 9–10 October 2014, in Baltimore, Maryland.  Roughly 50 IPGGR workshop participants …

ESSIC Research Associate Alek Petty participated in the Beaufort Gyre Exploration Project research cruise in the Beaufort Sea on-board the CCGS Louis S. St Laurent, Sept. 21st – Oct. 17th, 2014. Dr. Petty collected ship-based observations of the concentration, thickness and age of the sea ice pack.  Petty authored an ongoing blog post during the cruise, which was published on the ESSIC Website.  The blog provided a firsthand account of the trials and triumphs of the nearly month-long …

By: Alek Petty

Introduction:

Dr. Huan Meng, a NOAA physical scientist and Visiting Associate Research Scientist at the University of Maryland's Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites (CICS-MD), received NOAA's 2014 Bronze Medal for her satellite data analysis of snowfall rate, which will help weather forecasters more accurately predict the severity of snowstorms.

The NOAA Bronze Medal is the highest honor awarded by the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere to an individual, group,

ESSIC Assistant Research Scientist Sinead L. Farrell participated in the ICESat-2 Science Definition Team Meeting at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, San Diego, CA, 9-10th Jan 2014. The meeting was in support of pre-launch activities for NASA’s ICESat-2 laser altimetry mission….

ESSIC Assistant Research Scientist Sinead Farrell was co-author of a paper on current Arctic sea ice thickness conditions, published in Geophysical Research Letters, November 19.  The study examines the conditions of sea ice in the western Arctic in March 2009-2013, using new data collected by NASA's IceBridge airborne mission.     Richter-Menge, J. A., and S. L. Farrell (2013), Arctic sea ice conditions in spring 2009–2013 prior to melt, Geophys. Res. …

Jane Beitler’s October 11th web article, “Signs of Snow,” features the Sea Ice Thickness/IceBridge project of CICS-MD Scientist Sinead Farrell and her team: https://earthdata.nasa.gov/featured-stories/featured-research/signs-snow. This article also appears in in the NASA publication, Sensing Our Planet (2013). Farrell provided the photo (shown below) of ice re-grows in a lead between two sea ice floes in the Beaufort Sea, Arctic Ocean, in March 2013….

ESSIC Assistant Research Scientist Richard Cullather was cited for his expertise on the variability in the distribution of sea ice in an article in the University Herald. According to the Herald, although the artic experienced less ice loss this year than last year, the trend of declining ice is still a big concern in the area. Many factors influence the amount of ice loss that occurs annually, including long winters/shorter summers and the average thickness of the ice, since thinner ice …

According to the Washington Post, Maryland coastal experts recently predicted that sea levels bordering the state could rise six feet over the next century. Maryland, with a total of 3,100 miles of tidal shoreline, is one of the states most threatened by rising sea levels. The state could become especially vulnerable to flooding and storm surges, if the forecasts are accurate. The coastal states of Delaware, Virginia, Louisiana, and Florida are also at high risk. ESSIC’s Dr. Richard …