The earth’s climate has been changing, and as a result, more and more people are taking an interest in climate change and related topics like air pollution and the consequences of climate change. It has become a topic of debate during election years, and more people are looking at the earth’s climate, and things related to it, and doing studies on it. One such group is the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets.
“Our objective is to increase our understanding of ice sheets so that models can be developed that can reliably predict the contributions of ice-sheets to sea-level rise under prescribed climate changes in the future,” said Dr. David Braaten, the deputy director of the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets at the University of Kansas. It will take time to reach that goal, but those working at it are learning more about the ice sheets with each day.
Those who work in the center don’t only study here in Kansas. Many of them go on field research trips to Greenland, Antarctica, and the Arctic. CReSIS will soon be conducting airborne experiments in Greenland, and, towards the end of this year, field experiments in Antarctica.
On these trips, there are several objectives. Such goals include inventorying any and all major drainage basins and collecting data through various methods such as flights and radars. Another big objective revolves around identifying gaps in data.
“By identifying gaps in data, we will be able to further the advancement of technologies and determine what points our upcoming studies need to focus on,” said Dr. Braaten.
On such field research trips, they take measurements of such things as the surface elevation of ice sheets and the thickness of the ice sheets, among others. After their trips they log and archive their data, and create data charts and maps. For airborne research trips they create maps that show their flight lines, while for land research, they create charts and graphs of their data from such measurements as thickness. And so far, they are coming up with interesting results.
“This is not yet an official position of the National Science Foundation, but our scientists and engineers have seen solid numbers that show that ice sheets are discharging more fresh water into the oceans than has ever been witnessed in the past,” said Cameron Lewis, a University of Kansas graduate student who works at the center and may go on the upcoming field research trip to Greenland. It has also been found that the fresh water from the melting ice sheets not only contributes to rising sea levels, but that is will be responsible for the disruption of the North Atlantic Current, which is driven by a delicate balance between salt and water. CReSIS has also looked at sea level, which they believe could rise by up to a meter and a half by the end of this century, and has created maps for several different regions of the world that will be impacted the most by it.
Scientific research, from CReSIS and from other scientists, has also brought to light facts about the ongoing warming trend of the atmosphere. One of the main facts is that this recent trend of warming in the troposphere is more dramatic than what has been seen in history. It is a common opinion among many scientists and engineers that this recent heating of the troposphere is attributed to the unparalleled rise in the emissions of greenhouse gases.
“It’s not statistics, it’s pure numbers…numbers don’t lie,” said Audey Fusco, a member of CReSIS who is also a graduate student at KU.
CReSIS has recently developed a master robust signal processing program that will help process all of the data that is collected using depth sounding radars, and using this new tool as well as all the other resources available to them, those at CReSIS will continue to push towards their goal.
“I know that the work that I do at CReSIS directly affects the science community’s ability to create better ice sheet and climate models…and that makes it all worth it,” said Lewis.