Countdown to CryoSat launch

27 September 2005

Front page headlines announcing a massive loss of Arctic sea ice, and a dark prediction that global warming is now past the point of no return, precede the launch of CryoSat, scheduled to blast off from the Khrunichev Space Centre, Plesetsk, in Russia, at 16:02 British Summer Time, Saturday 8 October 2005.

This European Space Agency satellite, proposed by Duncan Wingham from NERC's Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM), will address one of the most hotly debated issues in the environmental science community in the last few decades - to what extent are the ice caps thinning?

Duncan Wingham said, "The great difficulty at present is to figure out whether changes in ice cover are due to melting or to changes in the winds that shift the ice around. The only way to do this is examine the entire Arctic at the same time. CryoSat is the first satellite designed to do this job, and after six years in the making, we are really looking forward to getting our hands on the data."

The satellite is scheduled for launch amid alarming reports of record Arctic sea ice lows in August and September this year, highlighting the importance of the three-year mission. Scientists attempting to accurately quantify the extent of the thinning have been hampered in the past by the inaccessibility of ice floes and ice sheets; and the fact that an area the size of Europe melts into the Arctic sea each summer only to freeze back again the following winter.

CryoSat's altimeter, the primary instrument onboard, has the ability to measure ice sheets and sea ice with unprecedented accuracy. Until now satellites have been unable to monitor melting ice at the very point where it is most significant: at the ice edge. CryoSat's ability to do just that thrills scientists working in the field, while the altimeter's ability to pick out sea ice of around one kilometre in diameter will greatly improve annual melt estimations.

NERC scientists will use the data from CryoSat for two purposes: to test the prediction that global warming is causing sea ice to thin; and to accurately predict sea level rise caused by melting ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland.

CryoSat, the first of ESA's Earth Explorer missions, is set for launch on 8 October. NERC and the British National Space Centre are holding a pre launch press conference at the Natural History Museum , London, 10.00am, 3 October. Launch events take place on 8 October at ESA headquarters in Frascati, Italy and at the National Space Centre, Leicester.

Further information

NERC Press Office
Natural Environment Research Council
Polaris House, North Star Avenue
Swindon, SN2 1EU
Tel: 01793 411561
Mob: 07917 557215

Countdown to CryoSat launch

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