Sastrugi, crevasses, sea ice, and bergy bits—a few of my ever-changing favorite things. Credits: NASA/Kate Ramsayer
by Kate Ramsayer / ANTARCTICA /
I knew they were my favorite as soon as I saw them. Sastrugi, the ice dunes of the polar desert, covered the landscape when I first flew low over Antarctica with Operation IceBridge. They were amazing—winds had shaped them into repeating patterns, appearing as diamonds or fish scales or branching tree roots. They were the only texture in the vast ice sheet that stretched as far as the eye could see.
The next day, however, crevasses took the top spot. Gigantic cracks that bent around mountains as the mass of ice crept toward the ocean—those were definitely my new favorite ice formations. As our IceBridge team took measurements down a path that ICESat-2 would trace from its orbit in space, I wondered how the height profile from these instruments could reflect these seemingly bottomless and terrifying cracks in the ice.
Then sea ice made an appearance. Icebergs were trapped at awkward angles in the frozen floes, and new ice spreading across open waters in translucent blues and whites—those had to be the most artistic formations, right? Maybe so—in my mind—until the next flight, which measured a newly created gigantic iceberg, and I glimpsed the jumble of bergy bits and sea ice in the rift between it and the glacier.
A glacier on the Antarctic Peninsula flows into the Bellingshausen Sea. Credits: NASA/Kate Ramsayer
At least I would be safe from a new favorite ice formation on my last flight, I thought. A survey farther inland of a region we had flown before, it should be old hat. But no. As we flew toward the site, the skies cleared over the Antarctic Peninsula, revealing glacier after glacier after glacier, all textbook examples of how spectacular glaciers can be.
Every day flying over Antarctica with the Operation IceBridge campaign brought a new incredible stretch of ice that left me, a new visitor to the continent, awestruck. Many members of the team have been surveying the continent for years, using a suite of instruments to map the ice and bedrock and monitor change. I couldn’t pick a favorite view, and can’t imagine they could either, so instead I just asked some of the IceBridge crew for an example of one of the neatest things they’ve seen flying over Antarctica.
Actually seeing Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers, which she has studied for more than a decade, is a highlight for Brooke Medley, IceBridge’s deputy project scientist. Her research showed that enough ice flows out of each glacier to contribute 1 millimeter to global sea level rise per decade. They’re massive glaciers, and flying over them puts into perspective just how massive they are. Credits: NASA/Kate RamsayerThe vastness of the Antarctic ice sheet can leave Eugenia DeMarco, IceBridge’s project manager, speechless. It’s just raw nature, she said, and provides a glimpse of what early explorers might have felt when they first ventured to this distant part of the world. Credits: NASA/Kate RamsayerIn massive ice streams that appear solid and unmoving, it’s the crevasses that remind you the ice is in motion, said Thorsten Markus, ICESat-2 project scientist. These giant breaks form as the faster ice downstream pulls away from the slower ice upstream. Credits: NASA/Brooke MedleyFrom above, crevasses can appear as wrinkles on fabric. Credits: NASA/Kate RamsayerThe ice may seem desolate, but there’s life in Antarctica, and Lyn Lohberger, an aircraft mechanic and safety technician, points to seals visible on the ice floes. They provide a contrast as well, he said—the black seals on the white ice, with blue seas and sky. Credits: NASA/Jeremy HarbeckIcebergs that have broken off of glaciers and ice shelves create different three-dimensional shapes in the flat sea ice, noted Victor Berger, with the CReSIS snow radar team. And Tim Moes, DC-8 project manager, pointed out the blue color of the older ice visible in the bergs. Credits: NASA/Kate RamsayerOperation IceBridge has surveyed Arctic and Antarctic ice for a decade, collecting scientific data on the changing ice. It’s the best office window view, said Jim Yungel, Airborne Topographic Mapper team lead—and it never gets old. Credits: NASA/Kate Ramsayer
