From: Michael Studinger, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, co-principal investigator on gravimeter team

PUNTA ARENAS, Chile – The weather forecast for our survey area yesterday, Nov. 16, over the Larsen C Ice Shelf predicted excellent conditions. Given the difficult weather situation over the past couple of days, this was a welcome change. After carefully studying satellite images and computer models and talking to the meteorologist at the Punta Arenas airport, we decided to fly NASA's DC-8 over Antarctica again.

The flight took us through an almost complete tour of the Antarctic cryosphere. We followed the flow of ice from the interior all the way to the ocean where it ends up as icebergs and eventually melts. We began our tour by flying over small ice caps on the Antarctic Peninsula. The snow and ice that forms these ice caps eventually flows downhill through steep valleys that are occupied by glaciers or ice streams.

At one point during the flight I took the seat in the cockpit behind our two pilots to get a better view of the spectacular scenery. We descended into a steep valley that was filled with ice flowing into the remnants of the former Larsen B Ice Shelf that broke apart a few years ago. The ice that’s flowing down through the valleys is pushing the ice in the ice shelves away and eventually huge chunks of ice break off and form icebergs. On the ice shelf the ice goes afloat and forms huge flat surfaces that seem to be endless. Beneath the ice is ocean water. We are here to study how the warm ocean water melts the ice shelf from beneath.

Our next survey line takes us all the way to the edge of the ice shelf where we can see several of these gigantic icebergs floating in the far distance surrounded by sea ice and pockets of open water. After crisscrossing the part of the Larsen C Ice Shelf that is still intact, we head back up to the crest of the Antarctic Peninsula and repeat our mini-tour through the Antarctic cryosphere on a different survey line.

Every time I look out of the window and soak in the spectacular scenery I see an incredibly beautiful but fragile landscape.

From: Kathryn Hansen, Science Writer, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

A last-minute change in flight plans made for another great science flight on Nov. 4. Initial plans were to make a high-altitude flight, according to program director Jim Yungel of NASA's Wallops Flight Facility.  But a forecaster in the Punta Arenas airport weather office advised crew of the potential for weather to interfere with the high-altitude measurements for the mission’s LVIS instrument.

With a new flight plan in place, NASA’s DC-8 took off just a few minutes after the scheduled 11 a.m. departure time. The new plan called for low-altitude flights over the Antarctic Peninsula.

"The forecaster was completely correct," Yungel wrote to colleagues after the flight. "We flew into sunny conditions with occasional very light high cirrus over flight lines, resulting in an outstanding data set over the Larsen Ice Shelf and many impressive glaciers."

Instruments that collect data at lower altitudes, including the Airborne Topographic Mapper, had a successful 11.3-hour flight.

"Much of this flight surveyed a grid over the Larsen C Ice Shelf," Yungel wrote. "Later in the flight we surveyed several significant glaciers in the central Peninsula area, including the Atlee, Flask, Crane, Hektoria, and Drygalski glaciers. It was a splendid day for flying glaciers!"

Despite the busy flight, Yungel managed to capture these images of the landscape from the aircraft window …

From: Michael Studinger, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, co-principal investigator, gravimeter team

PUNTA ARENAS, Chile – After flying for several hours over a windswept Southern Ocean on Tuesday, Oct. 27, the mission director announces that we will be slowly descending towards Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier. Just below are the Hudson Mountains, a small group of extinct volcanoes poking through the ice.

As we approach our survey area, John Sonntag with NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility and I watch the navigation display and admire the pilots' precision as they steer the giant NASA DC-8 aircraft to the start of our first survey line.

We are here to measure the glacier's ice surface with lasers, its bottom with radar, and estimate the depth of the water below it with an instrument that measures the gravity pull from above the glacier.

All systems are functioning well and we are excited about the data coming in. The computer screen mounted on the University of Kansas' radar rack is a popular in-flight gathering spot since it provides a real-time view of the radar data that allows us to “see” the bottom of the glacier while we fly over it.

The structures we see are quite amazing and we toss around ideas about what this tells us about how the glacier is responding to warming temperatures. Science can be so much fun! After criss-crossing Pine Island Glacier several times, it’s time to head home to Punta Arenas.

A heavily crevassed area of Pine Island Glacier. Shows you how very difficult it would be to travel and work on the surface of this glacier. Data are best collected from aircraft flying over the glacier or from space.

The calving front of Pine Island Glacier. This is the end of the glacier where pieces of ice break apart from the floating glacier and become icebergs.

Flying at low elevation over the edge of the floating part of Pine Island Glacier. Winds have blown away the sea ice resulting in an area with open water called a polynya. The goal of this flight is to estimate the thickness of the water layer beneath the floating ice shelf from gravity data.

The Hudson Mountains near the edge of Pine Island Glacier are a small group of extinct volcanoes that poke through the ice and make for spectacular scenery.

From: Steve Cole, Public Affairs Specialist, NASA Headquarters

PUNTA ARENAS, Chile, Oct. 24 -- A tradition with our airborne science missions: the group photo. Everyone gathered in front of the DC-8 at the airport just before another flight over Antarctica.

Credit: NASA/Steve Cole

From: Jill Hummels, Public Information Officer, University of Kansas School of Engineering

PUNTA ARENAS, Chile, Oct. 21 -- Every flight in NASA’s Operation Ice Bridge mission begins and ends with a briefing. Today’s pilot Dick Ewers calls the disparate group to order and starts the morning with a roll call of the flight manifest. Every person on the flight must be accounted for with either a self-announced “Here!” or another passenger providing an accounting of their whereabouts as “on the plane.” Today’s total: 31.

The project scientist Seelye Martin then gives an overview of the day’s science objective, which instruments will be onboard that day, and which will play the lead role.

The flight crew provides a brief review of issues that need monitoring by all passengers and crew. At the top of the list: making sure lavatory faucets aren’t left running and ensuring everyone knows that “equipment and hot food have priority in the aisles.” The navigator announces some of the parameters for the day’s flight, such as altitude and duration.  Other crew members reiterate safety awareness and the day’s schedule. “On the plane by 9. Doors close at 9:30. In the air by 10.”

Before taking off, all people on board must be on communication headsets. “Mission” (the flight crew) performs an audible check of all research instrument teams on board, and a representative from each team provides a status update.

Once airborne, researchers can choose to take off the headsets, but they are the best tool for communicating changing needs, problems, wishes, hopes and dreams with flight crew and the mission’s project science. Discussions, though not constant, are frequent.

About an hour into the flight, Mission announces impending pitch and roll maneuvers needed to calibrate some of the instruments.

Throughout the flight, everyone is free to move about the cabin, mingle, take pictures and talk shop.

Several instrument stations are outfitted with touch-screen monitors that provide real-time data, including satellite weather images, “webcams” of what’s directly in front of the plane and below it (below), and a Google Earth application that maps the current location of the DC-8.

Near the end of today’s roundtrip flight, the headsets are back on and everyone is back in their seats. Mission calls out each research team for a quick review of the day’s highlights, and any special landing procedures needed for data acquisition or instrument calibration.

On the ground, researchers quickly gather their personal belongings and any necessary portable equipment and haul it to the cramped mission offices at the airport. Within a half hour of the plane’s doors swinging open, all flight crew and researchers gather for a post-flight briefing on the day’s mission.

The day ends with a quick review of the next flight mission and schedule: “Briefing at 7. Power on at 7:30. Doors open by 8. Doors close by 8:30. In the air by 9.”

From: Steve Cole, Public Affairs Specialist, NASA Headquarters

PUNTA ARENAS, Chile -- Did you know we are posting behind-the-scenes videos of Operation Ice Bridge on NASA Television's YouTube channel? There are 4 "webisodes" online now in the Ice Bridge collection, with more to come.  It's a great chance to see for yourself how science is done in the field (and in the air).

http://www.youtube.com/NASATelevision

From:  Steve Cole, Public Affairs Specialist, NASA Headquarters

PUNTA ARENAS, Chile -- Here are some views from inside NASA's DC-8 research aircraft during the mission's Oct. 20 flight to Pine Island Glacier.

Monitors allowed everyone onboard to see where the DC-8 was during the nearly 11-hour roundtrip flight over Antarctica.  (NASA/Steve Cole)

Icebergs breaking off of the glacier in Pine Island Bay as the DC-8 completes one of its mapping runs over Pine Island Glacier.  (NASA/Steve Cole)

The DC-8 makes a turn over Pine Island Bay as it heads back up the glacier for another mapping run.  (NASA/Jane Peterson, NSERC)

Operation Ice Bridge project scientist Seelye Martin from the University of Washington during the flight.  (NASA/Jane Peterson, NSERC)

From: Jill Hummels, Public Information Officer, University of Kansas School of Engineering

PUNTA ARENAS, Chile, Oct. 20 -- Today’s high-altitude flight took NASA’s Operation Ice Bridge researchers over Antarctica’s Pine Island region (75° 25’ S and 98° 25’ W and surrounding area).

“We’re really pumped. We’re getting some really good data,” says Chris Allen from the University of Kansas about midway through the 11-hour flight. The electrical engineering professor and four graduate students are operating three different radars developed at the university through the National Science Foundation Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets.

Chris Allen at the controls of the MCoRDS radar, over Antarctica. (Jill Hummels/University of Kansas)

“A while back, we were over the ice shelf, and it was very distinct.” Now, as the plane progresses over the land formation, the vibrant multicolored display offers less clear information. But the raw data is still being captured. “That’s where the signal processing comes in,” Allen says.

The display offers a cactus-like spectrum of color, with spikes protruding from separate layers of color. The uninitiated eye can clearly see a “surface” in the image. That would be the top of the ice layer, Allen explains. The more trained eye knows that where the yellow, aqua and blue colors intermingle is where the real action lies. More sophisticated methods will be needed to coax meaning from the raw data.

Already the Kansas team is eliciting “oohs” and “ahhs” from other science team members through data they’ve collected with the MCoRDS radar in the mission’s two previous flights.  In a recent evening briefing at the hotel in Punta Arenas, an image being displayed for all to see appeared to show that in one inland area of Antarctica the ice sheet is several kilometers thick and is nestled in a channel of bedrock that appears to be well below sea level.

Five hours after today’s flight started, the plane has gone through several passes over the glacier and still has many more to go. The proscribed flight path -- called “mowing the lawn” -- includes 11 parallel lines and a couple perpendicular ones. Each parallel path is about five miles apart. However, the flight crew skips the adjacent path in order to comfortably make the wide turn to the next run. A couple “teardrop turns,” wider turns that loop back nearly 360 degrees to a narrower path, have been thrown in for good measure to ensure the science and engineering teams are on the exact positions they need.  It also helps break the monotony of flying over endless tracks of white.

Even after the flight crew has maneuvered the DC-8 through its perpendicular labyrinth and is making the long stretch home across the Antarctic Ocean, the Kansas team will still be hard at work crunching numbers and distilling hard truths from the icebergs of raw data.  With significant computing power aboard the plane, the team has made it a goal to try to deliver detailed information about ice sheet thickness and more by the time the plane lands in Punta Arenas.

The DC-8's flight plan (dark lines) and actual flight paths (red lines) mid-way through the "mowing" of Pine Island Glacier. (Pine Island Bay is on the left side of this image.)

From: Kathryn Hansen, Science Writer, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA's DC-8 returning from its second Antarctic flight of the mission.  (NASA/Steve Cole)

On Sunday, Oct. 18, researchers and crew flew on the DC-8 aircraft’s second Antarctic flight of the Operation Ice Bridge Campaign. The mission was dedicated to reflying areas of Thwaites Glacier previously mapped by the ICESat satellite to see how the glacier has changed.

The team took advantage of the good weather, flying at low altitude, spending about three hours surveying the glacier with the Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM), the campaign’s primary instrument. ATM pulses laser light in circular scans on the ground, which reflects the pulses back to the aircraft. The laser data are then converted into elevation maps of the ice surface.

Another instrument, the Multichannel Coherent Radar Depth Sounder (MCoRDS), collected thickness measurements over the glacier. The instrument team’s initial analysis of the data turned up unexpected depth.