NASA projects tracking changes in Alaska's glaciers and Arctic atmosphere

[unhappycamper]

http://www.adn.com/article/20140917/nasa-projects-tracking-changes-alaskas-glaciers-and-arctic-atmosphere



Changes in more than 130 Alaska glaciers are being surveyed by scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in a DHC-3 Otter as part of NASA's multi-year Operation Ice Bridge.

NASA projects tracking changes in Alaska's glaciers and Arctic atmosphere
Yereth Rosen
September 17, 2014

The U.S. agency that explores outer space is also probing another frontier -- the rapidly warming climate in Alaska and other parts of the Far North.

NASA has launched three Alaska-based projects to better understand how warming is changing the size and behavior of glaciers, the release of carbon gases from thawing permafrost and the interplay between sea ice, clouds and weather in and above the Arctic Ocean.

At a teleconferenced briefing on Tuesday, scientists working on the three NASA projects explained why changes on this part of the planet Earth are important to the space agency.

The polar regions are particularly important to NASA for many reasons, said Tom Wagner, cryospheric sciences program manager at the space agency’s Washington, D.C. headquarters.