The European Space Agency has successfully launched a mission to monitor the effects of climate change on Arctic and Antarctic ice thickness. Through the successful, second attempt at launching CryoSat, a resurrected satellite, into orbit, the organisation will be able to provide valuable data on the speed and magnitude of global climate change.
CryoSat-2, a replica satellite built following 2005’s mission failure, will be able to measure ice thickness in both regions to within one centimetre’s accuracy. Arctic and Antarctic ice cap melting is widely acknowledged as a major signal of climate change and the data collected by this UK-led team of scientists will be collating the data with that of ocean currents and wider climatic information.
Duncan Wingham, a climate physicist from University College London, is leading the study. He gained approval for the second attempt at his research mission to use an extra radar altimeter, a device that measures ice thickness by firing microwaves over the Arctic and Antarctic.
Speaking to the Guardian the director of the National Centre for Earth Observation at the University of Reading, Alan O’Neill, supported the mission, saying, "these measurements are absolutely crucial to our understanding of climate variability and climate change. Not only are they early indicators of climate change because of feedbacks in the system, but they're not remote from what affects people's lives and the weather that affects the rest of the planet. The polar regions are connected to the rest of the planet by the atmosphere and the ocean."