ESA CryoSat - New ice thickness map of the Arctic unveiled

The first map of sea-ice thickness from ESA’s CryoSat mission was revealed today at the Paris Air and Space Show.

This new information is set to change our understanding of the complex relationship between ice and climate.

From an altitude of just over 700 km and reaching unprecedented latitudes of 88º, CryoSat has spent the last seven months delivering precise measurements to study changes in the thickness of Earth’s ice.

Satellites have already shown that the extent of sea ice in the Arctic is diminishing. In fact, spring 2011 is the third lowest extent recorded by satellite.

However, to understand fully how climate change is affecting the fragile polar regions, there is a need to determine exactly how the thickness of the ice is changing.

To answer this question, a group of scientists together with Prof. Duncan Wingham from University College London proposed the CryoSat mission to ESA in 1998. The loss of the original CryoSat satellite in 2005 as a result of a launch failure has unfortunately made this a longer than normal wait.

Nevertheless, the launch of the replacement satellite in April 2010 has resulted in these first maps of ice thickness.

They clearly demonstrate that CryoSat is a mission of excellence and will greatly advance polar science.

The results were presented at the Le Bourget air and space show by Volker Liebig, ESA's Director of Earth Observation Programmes, Duncan Wingham and René Forsberg from the National Space Institute at the Technical University of Denmark.

ESA - CryoSat - New ice thickness map of the Arctic unveiled

See also the ESA Paris video of Cryosat Presentation here