Sea Ice Flight From Greenland to Alaska

The two most important sea ice flights every year are two crossings of the entire Arctic Basin, north of Greenland and Canada all the way to Alaska. A challenge comes from predicting the weather in such a remote area. We have infrared satellite images and computer models available, but these models cannot be validated because there are no weather stations in the Arctic Ocean. Also, neither the forecast models nor satellite images show the weather features that are most important to us: low clouds and ice fog that disrupt the laser and camera measurements. IceBridge flight from Thule, Greenland to Fairbanks, AK that surveyed sea ice along a transect over the entire Arctic Basin. Basemap is MODIS satellite image showing cloud cover and sea ice over the Arctic Ocean. Credit: NASA/M. Studinger