Earth Observations by Satellite

NASA Earth-observing satellites — more than two dozen currently — provide layers of complementary information on our oceans, land, ice, and atmosphere. A team of scientists, including Ben Smith at the Lab's Polar Science Center and David Shean at the UW Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, were notified during the first week of May that their proposed NASA satellite mission has moved to the final round of consideration. The team, led by Scripps glaciologist Helen Amanda Fricker, proposed EDGE, which aims to observe the three-dimensional structure of terrestrial ecosystems like forests and the surface features of glaciers, ice sheets, and sea ice as they are changing in response to climate and human activity.

EDGE and three other proposed missions are part of NASA's new Earth Systems Explorers program. Each are receiving $5 million to conduct a one-year mission concept study, at the conclusion of which NASA will choose two concepts to be developed fully and scheduled for launch in the early 2030s.

Advancing Space-Based Altimetry

EDGE will deploy new laser technology to scan the height of surface features in 120-m strips around the globe, providing better coverage and higher resolution and accuracy than any previous satellite altimeter. "EDGE will provide detailed portraits of ice sheets, especially the rapidly changing glaciers and ice shelves near the coasts," remarks glaciologist Ben Smith. "We will be making maps of crevasses and rifts in the places where short-term changes are really driving the evolution of the cryosphere."

Smith's expertise in NASA Earth observations began with his doctoral research using ICESat data and grew with his membership on the science team for the ICESat-2 mission. About EDGE, he notes, "One of the strengths of this laser altimeter mission is that we know how to use it and how to stitch it together with a multi-decadal record of change — connecting the data products directly to measurements that began in 2003."

NASA's ICESat-2 was designed to capture long-term changes in the ice sheets. In contrast, EDGE will provide detailed portraits, especially the rapidly changing glaciers and ice shelves near the coasts. —Ben Smith

CARBON-I, EDGE, ODYSEA + STRIVE