IceBridge overflies Norwegian camp on drifting sea ice
Friday, March 27, 2015 - 08:00
in Earth & Climate
Studying sea ice in the Fram Strait, a passage between Greenland and Svalbard that is the main gateway for Arctic sea ice into the open ocean, is not easy. In this area, not only does ice flow southward quickly – at the same time, warmer ocean waters melt and thin it from below, making it easier for waves to break the ice into smaller floes. This dynamic, unstable environment makes it hard for scientists to set camps on the sea ice and collect direct measurements. In turn, scarce field data means that remote measurements of sea ice in the Fram Strait have few sources of validation.