KAREN field campaign

The University of Leeds Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM) lead a field campaign as part of ESA’s KAREN land ice validation campaign, which took place in October 2016.

Anna Hogg and Andrew Shepherd were based at Ilulissat on the west coast of Greenland. After three helicopter flights to arrive on the ice sheet, they carried out three experiments at three field sites on the EGIG line transect, which goes from the ice sheet margin to the dry snow zone at the ice sheet summit.

The team collected ice cores to measure snow density and stratigraphy, snow pen data to measure the snow depth to the last summers melt layer, and placed metal surface reflectors on the snow surface to calibrate the airborne measurements. Safely at home, the team will now analyse the data.

The ESA’s KAREN campaign aims is to collect unique measurements to help us better understand how snow and ice on the Greenland ice sheet is changing over time, and help ESA design future space missions to monitor the changing climate in our polar regions.

Copyright: A. Hogg