Embassy of the United States

October 2009

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Thwaites Glacier

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Thwaites Glacier

October 23, 2009

Embassy Participates in NASA Ice Bridge Mission over Antarctica

U.S. Embassy Santiago Press Attaché Paul Watzlavick participated in an overflight of Antarctica on October 18 during NASA's Operation Ice Bridge.  NASA began a series of flights October 15 from Punta Arenas, Chile to study changes to Antartica's sea ice, glaciers, and ice sheets.  Scientists will also measure atmospheric conditions and concentrations of various greenhouse gases over Antarctica, such as methane, carbon dioxide, water vapor, and carbon monoxide.
 
Operation Ice Bridge is a six-year campaign that is the largest airborne survey every made of ice at Earth's polar regions.  Researchers are working from NASA's DC-8 aircraft, a flying laboratory equipped with laser mapping instruments, ice-penetrating radar, and gravity instruments.  Data collected from the mission will help scientists better predict how changes to the massive Antarctic ice sheet will impact future sea levels around the world.

During the mission in Chile, NASA scientists will make 17 flights through mid-November that will take measurements across a wide area of Antarctica.  In addition to NASA personnel, the overflights also include researchers from the University of Kansas, Columbia  University, the University of North Dakota, and the Antarctic Institute of Chile.

The October 18 flight passed over West Antarctica, specifically the Thwaites Ice Shelf and Glacier, one of the five largest glaciers in Antarctica.  With the DC-8 flying at an altitude of just  1550 feet above the glacier, scientists measured the ice sheet as it increased from roughly 80 meters in thickness as the ice shelf merged with continental Antartica to more than 2800 meters some 125 miles inland.  In some areas Antarctic sea ice extends for up to 600 miles from the continent.

The Antarctic flights follow the first Ice Bridge campaign earlier this year over Greenland and the Arctic Ocean. The mission will map key areas in each polar region once a year and Arctic flights resume in 2010.