Scientists - contacts + Data = ICESat

Esoteric Agenda
A challenge to global warming as a untruth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dhxp-720z1Y
original source
http://www.consciousmedianetwork.com/video/121207.htm

DATA-SOURCES
http://oiswww.eumetsat.org/VLab/cgi/view.pl?format=short&section=Useful%20Links%20to%20Live%20DataVL Resource Library - Useful Links to Live Data

http://mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov/data.html
The MY NASA DATA Live Access Server (LAS) is now available to create your own microsets for your class or your interests. The LAS contains over 128 parameters in atmospheric and earth science from five NASA scientific projects.

MAJOR STARTING POINT FOR DATA


ICESat
http://icesat.gsfc.nasa.gov/
ICESat (Ice, Cloud,and land Elevation Satellite) is the benchmark Earth Observing System mission for measuring ice sheet mass balance, cloud and aerosol heights, as well as land topography and vegetation characteristics. The ICESat mission will provide multi-year elevation data needed to determine ice sheet mass balance as well as cloud property information, especially for stratospheric clouds common over polar areas. It will also provide topography and vegetation data around the globe, in addition to the polar-specific coverage over the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

http://icesat.gsfc.nasa.gov/list.php

About the Branch: About Home
http://neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov/csb/subpages/?section=About%20the%20Branch

Cryospheric research within the Branch addresses the physics of ice sheets and glaciers, sea ice, snow on ice and land, and their roles in the global climate system. Laboratory technology efforts develop new approaches to remote sensing measurements of critical physical processes. Previous Laboratory research, which led to the TOPEX/Poseidon mission, has now led also to Goddard leadership of the ICESat/GLAS altimeter—including present Laboratory support of GLAS data processing—plus ice sheet altimetry, the Mars Orbiting Laser Altimeter (MOLA), and our strong airborne ice topography validation program. We expect these activities to continue.

Despite problems with the instrument, ICESat has produced stunning results that extend well beyond the planned polar ice sheet program goals to include sea ice measurements and new applications to Earth topology and even land water run-off and forest height measurements. For the Laboratory, Goddard and NASA, this is an on-going development of highest priority with broad, across-the-board application for Earth science needs and we expect Laboratory staff to assist with a long-lifetime, advanced-laser ICESat follow-on mission proposal.

Jay Zwally - Senior Research Scientisthttp://neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov/csb/personnel/index.php?page=profile&pers_id=10

Phone: 301-614-5643
Fax: 301-614-5644

Email: E-mail Jay Zwally

Address:
Cryospheric Sciences Branch
Code 614.1
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland USA 20771

His recent research includes leading a comprehensive analysis of the mass balance of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and ice shelves, the discovery of the melt-acceleration effect on the flow of the Greenland ice sheet, and the first comprehensive mapping of sea ice freeboard and thickness distributions.

Since 1979, he has been a leading scientist promoting satellite laser altimetry for ice sheet mass balance studies, leading to the launch of the Ice Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) in 2003. Currently, he is the ICESat Project Scientist and a member of the science teams for the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS), the Mars Orbiting Laser Altimeter (MOLA), and ENVISAT and CRYOSAT Calibration/Validation.

DATA

ICESat data are distributed by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). GLAS produces 16 data products including Levels 1A, 1B, and 2 laser altimetry and atmospheric lidar data. Visit this website...

• See new Publications
• Click here for Orbit Data

http://nsidc.org/daac/icesat/
The Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) is the sole instrument on the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat). The main objective of the ICESat mission is to measure ice sheet elevations and changes in elevation through time. Secondary objectives include measurement of cloud and aerosol height profiles, land elevation and vegetation cover, and sea ice thickness. ICESat will enable scientists to study the Earth's climate and, ultimately, predict how ice sheets and sea level will respond to future climate change.

ICESat has a near-circular and near-polar 91-day orbit with a 33-day repeat cycle, at an altitude of approximately 600 km, providing global coverage between 86°N and 86°S.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) archives and distributes 15 products, including Levels 1A, 1B, and 2 laser altimetry and atmospheric lidar data. The initial data stream is approximately 20 GB per day.

http://nsidc.org/data/icesat/index.html

IMAGERY

This figure illustrates ice sheet elevation and cloud data from ICESat's GLAS on its first day of operation February 20, 2003. For more information on this image, and to view more images, click on the picture or follow this link...

See Also

• ICESat/GLAS project page at NSIDC
• Program for Arctic Regional Climate Assessment (PARCA)

Related Data Sets

• GLAS/ICESat 500 m Laser Altimetry Digital Elevation Model of Antarctica
• GLAS/ICESat 1 km Laser Altimetry Digital Elevation Model of Greenland

http://neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory

	614.1 Cryospheric Sciences Branch
	614.2 Ocean Sciences Branch
	614.3 Hydrological Sciences Branch
	614.4 Biospheric Sciences Branch
	614.5 Terrestrial Information Systems Branch
	614.6 Instrumentation Sciences Branch

Articles - cnn.com - planet.in.peril

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/planet.in.peril/
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/07/11/globalwarming.overview/index.html

Global warming: A natural cycle or human result?

He calls his discovery Warming Island.
Explorer Dennis Schmitt found an island nearly two years ago near Greenland
Many climatologists and scientists say arctic ice melt and other changes in the Earth's climate are the result of an increase in the world's temperature, a trend widely called global warming.

http://topics.cnn.com/topics/global_climate_change
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/12/11/arctic.melt.ap/index.html#cnnSTCText
Scientist: 'Arctic is screaming'

• Story Highlights
• Record melt seen all over the Arctic in 2007
  
• Scientists worry global warming has passed an ominous tipping point
  
• What happens in the Arctic has implications for the rest of the world

Greenland's ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer's end was half what it was just four years earlier, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by The Associated Press.

"The Arctic is screaming," said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government's snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colorado.

This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions."
"The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming," said Zwally, who as a teenager hauled coal. "Now as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the coal mines."
White sea ice reflects about 80 percent of the sun's heat off Earth, NASA's Zwally said. When there is no sea ice, about 90 percent of the heat goes into the ocean which then warms everything else up. Warmer oceans then lead to more melting.

n the United States, a weakened Arctic blast moving south to collide with moist air from the Gulf of Mexico can mean less rain and snow in some areas, including the drought-stricken Southeast, said Michael MacCracken, a former federal climate scientist who now heads the nonprofit Climate Institute.

"I don't pay much attention to one year ... but this year the change is so big, particularly in the Arctic sea ice, that you've got to stop and say, 'What is going on here?' You can't look away from what's happening here," said Waleed Abdalati, NASA's chief of cyrospheric sciences.
A record amount of surface ice was lost over Greenland this year, 12 percent more than the previous worst year, 2005, according to data the University of Colorado released Monday.

But temperature measurements 66 feet deep in the frozen soil rose nearly four-tenths of a degree from 2006 to 2007, according to measurements from the University of Alaska. While that may not sound like much, "it's very significant," said University of Alaska professor Vladimir Romanovsky.

According to that pattern, 2007 shouldn't have been a major melt year, but it was, said Konrad Steffen, of the University of Colorado, which gathered the latest data.

Other new data, from a NASA satellite, measures ice volume. NASA geophysicist Scott Luthcke, reviewing it and other Greenland numbers, concluded: "We are quite likely entering a new regime."
NASA scientist James Hansen, the lone-wolf researcher often called the godfather of global warming, on Thursday will tell scientists and others at a meeting of researchers in San Francisco that in some ways Earth has hit one of his so-called tipping points, based on Greenland melt data.

Last year, Cecilia Bitz at the University of Washington and Marika Holland at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado startled their colleagues when they predicted an Arctic free of sea ice in just a few decades. Both say they are surprised by the dramatic melt of 2007.