NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Mission: CryoVex-2 (priority: high; new line)

This mission is a coordinated flight with the CryoVex experiment. It is similar to the first CryoVex mission flown on 03/24/17, also from Thule. This second mission is a coordination with a Christian Haas-led in-situ campaign along the same line (York Univ., Canada). In addition to Level 1 Requirements SI1 and SI2, the mission addresses sea ice level 1 baseline requirement SI4 and SI9 by coordinating the mission with both CryoSat-2 and the CryoVex effort. In this case, we followed CryoSat-2 track 37179 on a descending flight. To maximize the science return from this mission and best expand our geographical coverage of Arctic sea ice, we also flew most (~3/4) of the northern portion of the high-priority North Canada Basin mission prior to joining the CryoSat-2 track at ~88ºN and following on a southeasterly course.

Cloudy conditions persisted across northwestern Greenland today. We flew through a haze across Nares Strait and part of Ellesmere Island, but were able to collect ATM T5 narrow scan data over most of Ellesmere Island at high altitude. We then descended to survey altitude and encountered mostly clear conditions over lots of consolidated sea ice with relatively few leads for most of the mission. We passed over the CryoVex team and their Twin Otter at about 37159N just off nadir. Before overflying Alert, we circled once to deconflict from a Canadian C-17 landing there. Finally, we crossed over Nares Strait, Washington Land, icebergs discharged from Humboldt Glacier and Inglefield Land before at mostly high altitude returning to Thule. All instruments performed well today with no issues reported. ATM estimates 98% data collection, despite the occasional haze and higher altitudes. John Farrell, executive director of the US Arctic Research Commission, joined the flight today.