NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Mission: Thomas – Jakobshavn 01
Priority: Baseline
 
This baseline mission was last flown in 2018 and surveys two ICESat-2 tracks of varying time latency. This flight combines historical ATM focused grid (approximately 100 km N-S and 75 km E-W) and flowline surveys (collected as far back as 1997), ICESat legacy tracks, and two ICESat-2 tracks. The latter are new this year, replacing two ICESat tracks. One of the IS-2 tracks was swapped (see notes below) to minimize the timing between OIB and IS-2 data collection.
 
On our transit to today’s target, the P-3 was filmed by the BBC from a chartered Air Greenland helicopter over the ice sheet.  Shortly thereafter, we made it to the science target where we slowly “mowed the lawn” from the interior to the calving front of Jakobshavn Isbrae.   Many exposed, frozen supraglacial lakes were visible in the upper reaches. As we made our way closer to the fjord, ponding of surface meltwater became more and more frequent to the point where several supraglacial lakes were observed.
 
Conditions were ideal: early we encountered scattered and thin high clouds above us, and near clear-sky conditions later in the day.  The flight was largely smooth with isolated bouts of turbulence over the main trunk of Jakobshavn.  Thus, data collection was excellent.  We performed a ramp pass at 1200’ prior to landing. Headwall SWIR was unable to be operated today, but otherwise all instruments worked well. ATM estimates 100% altimetry data recovery.
 
ICESat-2 Tracks (+/- indicates OIB surveyed after/before ICESat-2)
            0338, + 16 days
            0597, - 15 hours