NWT RESEARCH DATABASE

Regions: Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Gwich'in Settlement Area

Tags: physical sciences, climate change, sea ice, snow, aerial survey

Objective(s): To improve understanding of the response of sea ice and its snow cover to the ongoing warming of the Arctic and to improve snow models.

Project Description: This licence has been issued for the scientific research application No.5486. IceBird Winter 2023 is part of a long-term sea ice observation program within the IceBird aircraft campaign series. IceBird was initiated in 2018 with the objective to ensure the long-term availability of a unique data record of direct sea-ice thickness observations to understand the role of the sea ice component for the causes and consequences of Arctic change, but is built on the heritage of airborne sea-ice thickness observations that date back to 2004. Compared to earlier airborne programs, IceBird has been enhanced with an improved sensor setup that also allows measuring snow depth on sea ice, fully collocated with sea-ice thickness and surface roughness at high resolution. The objectives of IceBird Winter 2023 include the continued quantification of trends, the separation of variability and extreme events of sea ice thickness and its snow cover in the Western Seas of the Arctic Ocean. The continuation of airborne sea-ice observation programs fulfills the requirement of consistent and long-term observations of key climate parameters. The data will be used to improve understanding of the response of sea ice and its snow cover to the ongoing warming of the Arctic and to improve snow models. Airborne data of snow and sea-ice thickness are also critically needed for the evaluation of sea-ice remote sensing products as well as for the evolution of algorithms for current and future satellite missions. Surveys from IceBird Winter 2023 will target the validation of sea-ice freeboard and snow depth estimates from CryoSat-2, ICESat-2, Sentinel-3A/B and AltiKa altimeters. In the case of loss of one or multiple of these satellites until 2023, data from IceBird will partly bridge the gap until future the CRISTAL altimeter mission. The project will use a specially modified DC-3 research aircraft, owned by the Alfred Wegener Institute, fitted with scientific instruments that will be used to collect data. Airborne observations and data will be collected while based at five different locations across the Arctic. At each location, research flights will be conducted with a range of approximately 300km. The planned flight altitudes are between 60m and 600m, with low altitude flights only making up approximately 20 minutes of each flight. The core sensor set of the Ice Bird campaigns is a combination of an airborne electromagnetic sea-ice thickness sounder (EM-Bird) and an airborne laser scanner for the observations of sea ice surface properties. A snow radar for measuring snow depth on sea ice completes this setup. The location of the surveys are sea-ice covered regions near airports and bases in the high Arctic: 1. Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada 2. Weather Station Eureka, Nunavut, Canada 3. Station Nord, Greenland, Denmark 4. Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen, Norway The results will be published in English in international peer-reviewed papers and communicated at international conferences. The research team also plan to conduct science communication via social media channels during and shortly after the field campaigns. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from March 25, 2023 to March 31, 2023.