NOTE: The image below is NOT sea ice thickness, but ocean topography.
Radar data from the European satellite has been used to make a map of ocean circulation across the Arctic basin.
Cryosat’s primary mission is to measure sea-ice thickness, which has been in sharp decline in recent decades.
But its ability also to map the shape of the sea surface will tell scientists if Arctic currents are changing as a result of winds being allowed to blow more easily on ice-free waters.
“Nobody really knows how the Arctic is going to behave as the ice retreats, but we do anticipate that significant changes will occur,” said Dr Seymour Laxon, a Cryosat science team member from University College London, UK.
“This is just the first data, and it shows we now have the tool to monitor what is happening,” he told BBC News.
[Cryosat] carries one of the highest resolution synthetic aperture radars ever put in orbit.
The instrument sends down pulses of microwave energy which bounce off both the top of the Arctic sea-ice and the water in the cracks, or leads, which separate the floes.
By measuring the difference in height between these two surfaces, scientists will be able, using a relatively simple calculation, to work out the overall volume of the marine ice cover in the far north.
WUWT carried the story of the Cryosat launch and testing in several articles:
From the European Space Agency 070110 Participants at the Living Planet Symposium have been hearing about ESA’s most recently launched mission, CryoSat-2. In orbit for almost three months, the satellite is in excellent health with scientists very encouraged by the … Continue reading →
From the European Space Agency, it looks like CryoSat-2 is working well. I’m sure we are all looking forward to seeing what the results are. ESA’s ice mission delivers first data 13 April 2010 ESA’s CryoSat-2 has delivered its first … Continue reading →
Successful launch for ESA’s CryoSat-2 ice satellite From the European Space Agency: 8 April 2010 ESA PR 07-2010. Europe’s first mission dedicated to studying the Earth’s ice was launched today from Kazakhstan. From its polar orbit, CryoSat-2 will send back … Continue reading →
Full story about the current data from BBC here