New NASA Satellite Reveals Profiles of Ice, Forests and Oceans

  • Released Tuesday, December 11, 2018
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Music: "Pizzicato Piece," Andrew Michael Britton [PRS], David Stephen Goldsmith [PRS]

Less than three months into its mission, NASA’s Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2, or ICESat-2, is already exceeding scientists’ expectations. The satellite is measuring the height of sea ice to within an inch, tracing the terrain of previously unmapped Antarctic valleys, surveying remote ice sheets, and peering through forest canopies and shallow coastal waters.



With each pass of the ICESat-2 satellite, the mission is adding to datasets tracking Earth’s rapidly changing ice. Researchers are ready to use the information to study sea level rise resulting from melting ice sheets and glaciers, and to improve sea ice and climate forecasts.

Credits

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NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

This page was originally published on Tuesday, December 11, 2018.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:46 PM EDT.