Sea Level Rise Seminar, 2021-03-23: Andrew Shepherd

Sea Level Rise Seminar, 2021-03-23
Speaker: Andrew Shepherd,
Title: CryoSat – a decade of polar altimetry

Abstract: CryoSat-2 is ESA's first satellite mission dedicated to measuring changes in the cryosphere and its observations have transformed our capacity to study the polar regions. Thanks to CryoSat-2, we now have an altogether new appreciation of how Earth’s ice sheets, ice shelves, sea ice, glaciers, and polar oceans are evolving. As global temperatures have risen, so too have rates of snowfall, ice melting, and sea level rise, and each of these changes impacts upon the neighbouring land, marine, and atmospheric environments. CryoSat-2 measurements are now central to our awareness and understanding of Arctic and Antarctic environmental change; a case in point is the marine ice sheet instability that is underway in West Antarctica, widely understood to be among the greatest contemporary imbalances in the climate system, whose evolution has been charted in satellite altimeter data since its onset. In this presentation I will introduce the CryoSat-2 mission concept, describe the technical advances that have improved our capability to monitor land ice, sea ice, and the polar oceans, and review a series of flagship studies that have allowed both long-standing and unanticipated scientific problems in cryospheric research to be solved.

Видео Sea Level Rise Seminar, 2021-03-23: Andrew Shepherd канала NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies