Successful launch for ESA’s CryoSat-2 ice satellite
From the European Space Agency:
8 April 2010
ESA PR 07-2010. Europe’s first mission dedicated to studying the Earth’s ice was launched today from Kazakhstan. From its polar orbit, CryoSat-2 will send back data leading to new insights into how ice is responding to climate change and the role it plays in our ‘Earth system’.
The CryoSat-2 satellite was launched at 15:57 CEST (13:57 UTC) on a Dnepr rocket provided by the International Space Company Kosmotras from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The signal confirming that it had separated from the launcher came 17 minutes later from the Malindi ground station in Kenya.
CryoSat-2 replaces the original CryoSat satellite that was lost in 2005 owing to a launch failure. The mission objectives, however, remain the same: to measure changes in the thickness of the vast ice sheets that overlie Antarctica and Greenland, as well as variations in the thickness of the relatively thin ice floating in the polar oceans.
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Successful launch for ESA’s CryoSat-2 ice mission
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“We know from our radar satellites that sea ice extent is diminishing, but there is still an urgent need to understand how the volume of ice is changing,” said Volker Liebig, ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programmes. “To make these calculations, scientists also need information on ice thickness, which is exactly what our new CryoSat satellite will provide. We are now very much looking forward to receiving the first data from the mission.”
The launch of CryoSat-2 marks a significant achievement for ESA’s Earth observation programme and brings to three the number of its Earth Explorer satellites placed in orbit, all having been launched within a little over 12 months. CryoSat-2 follows on from the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) mission, launched in March 2009, and the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission, launched last November.
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CryoSat measuring sea ice
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Earth Explorers are launched in direct response to issues identified by the scientific community and aim to improve our understanding of how the Earth system works and the effect that human activity is having on natural processes.
In response to this need, CryoSat-2 is carrying the first radar altimeter of its kind to overcome the difficulties of measuring icy surfaces. Its primary payload, the sophisticated SAR/Interferometric Radar Altimeter (SIRAL), was developed by Thales Alenia Space to measure the thickness of ice floating in the oceans and monitor changes in the ice sheets on land, particularly around the edges where icebergs are calved.
The CryoSat-2 satellite was built by a consortium led by EADS Astrium. The satellite is in a polar orbit, reaching latitudes of 88°. This is closer to the poles than earlier Earth observation satellites, resulting in an additional area of about 4.6 million sq km being covered. This extra coverage amounts to an area larger than all 27 European Union member states put together. The combination of the technology onboard and a polar orbit will provide evidence to further our understanding of the relationship between ice and climate.
Now that CryoSat-2 is safely in orbit, the Mission Control Team at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany is busy with the critical ‘Launch and Early Operations Phase’.
This will save the wandering troubadorss from taking such great risks with their lives. After this equipment collects data for a few hundred years, we can maybe have a good sample size.
Their mission statement defines a pre-determined agenda and assumptions.
Perhaps the ice sheets are not changing significantly? Would that mean failure of the mission?
Yay, Euros!
Now, we just need to wait about 10 years and we might have enough data to say something sorta useful. . . . tho that is rather hasty for these things.
Kazakhstan?
Borat is going to be measuring world ice sheet volumes for the ESA?
/sarcoff
Cyro Sat- 2 will measure what it measures. I predict the ice will always be changing, that’s what ice does!
How the measurements are interpreted by human beings who want to prove one thing or another is however totally unpredictable.
I’d be curious to know exactly how it measures the thickness of the ice. Surely if it is done with radar, enormous power would be required to penetrate the depth of ice to be found
Hope it does not carry a convenient “tricky chip” on board, so to adjust data to settled IPCC dogmas before sending it back to the earth. ☺
“The combination of the technology onboard and a polar orbit will provide evidence”
And here’s me thinking it was going to collect data.
The data, what will it be compared to? I assume there is no similar data availabe to compare it to?
…. on Greenland and the Antarctic.
(sorry about the finger trouble …)
@ur momisugly Steve Goddard:
“Perhaps the ice sheets are not changing significantly? Would that mean failure of the mission?”
No, it would not. One of the most famous scientific experiments in history, the Michelson–Morley experiment, produced an unexpected null result which subsequently helped Einstein’s special theory of relativity to gain acceptance.
Irrespective of whether the results of the CryoSat-2 observations support or oppose the idea that the ice sheets will vanish every fair minded person should hope that the instruments are properly calibrated (so that the results can be relied on) and that the results will be accepted regardless of whose theories they support.
Roy
I am always amazed how fast the native English speaker picks up the news and make their analyzes.
Here in Europe we realize this is just to support Russian rocket technology.
I’ll wager one of the first results to be released will be “the ice is thinner than we thought.” How thick/thin did we think it was/is and more importantly, relative to what/when? I foresee a spin doctors PR dream in the making. If this new measurement has to have any meaningful bearing the “normal” must be established with absolute certainty.
Royinsouthwest (12:27:30) :
NCDC is headquartered at ORNL’s “Carbon Dioxide Information and Analysis Center”
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/
I’m always leery of data collection that appears to be tied to a particular belief system.
Cutting through the adspeak and product promotion just what does this satellite do better than the existing satellites do now?
We know how thick the sea ice is and we already know sea ice extent accurately enough, we have detailed images and can examine multi year ice levels from the centre to the very edges of the ice pack and we also have satellites measuring the Greenland/Antarctic ice sheets already.
Is this satellite realy needed at all or in fact is the real agenda to provide work and funding for ‘on board’ agencies?
“I Exite!”
Measuring changes in the thickness of the ice will still be very tricky. CryoSat can measure the altitude of the ice (both sea ice and glacial ice) with centimeter precision and with a resolution of about 250 meters. The thickness is another matter. Where there are reasonably large ledes the sea-level can be measured directly and the freeboard and thereby thickness of the ice can be calculated with good precision. In areas without leads the sea-level must be estimated, which introduces a great deal of uncertainty, there being no tide-gauges for “ground truth” in the ice-covered parts of the ocean.
Measuring changes in thickness of glacier ice is even more uncertain, since changes in the altitude of the ground under the ice can only be measured in a few places at the edge of the ice, and must be modelled everywhere else, with a lot of uncertainty. For example some models say that the ground under the Greenland icecap is sinking, while others claim that it is rising. As a matter of fact it is probably doing both in different places. And, yes, the change is significant. In parts of Scandinavia the ground is still rising almost a centimeter a year, as an after-effect of the last glaciation 10,000 years ago.
I really think this satellite becomes a big success but the press publications and news broadcasts were very biased, like this:
“The satellite is supposed to observe the melting ice cap. This is especially important for the Dutch so they will know if the sea levels are going to rise 30 cm or three meters”.
This is in short is the hog wash public media (paid by the tax payer) are airing.
Did anyone tell the Dutch they now live in the former DDR?
Cassandra King (13:12:01) :
I have been looking into this lately, but I admit I’m not thorough. But it seems that we have no real idea about ice thickness since ICESat went off.
In an improvement, this new satellite also carries a flippy floppy ice detector instrument.
Cassandra King (13:12:01) :
Anyway, part of what I said is in the press release up there too.
“The combination of the technology onboard and a polar orbit will provide evidence to further our understanding of the relationship between ice and climate.”
Yes, too bad they used “evidence” rather than “data” . It sorta gives the objective away before the poor old probe gets into orbit.
@Cassandra King (13:12:01) :
We do? From where? The only measurements on thickness I’m aware of are at best described as “occasional”.
This satellite will give you daily measurements that will allow us to finally have a daily approximation of “volume” instead of just “extent” and “area”, and will revolutionize the discussions. Eventually. If it stays up long enough and all the electronics work as designed.
Daily volume calculations should also make those chokepoints in June and December on the daily “extent” charts loosen up considerably.
KPO (13:10:50) :
Probably so.
The only solution I can see is to start a new data base beginning with the very first measurement. No splicing, no “adjustments”, no altering of the data — which must be publicly archived on-line and in real time. This is taxpayer funded weather information, not nuclear defense secrets.
Enough scientists, technicians and engineers, including the rotating through of outside scientists, must be working together on site in such a way that fudging the data or instruments would be extremely difficult.
Calibrations must be traceable to physical standards, and a thorough record of all testing must be dual-signed by those responsible and kept in hard copy.
If everything done is not completely transparent and replicable, then this new satellite venture will be subject to the same pressures that enticed the corrupt CRU, Penn State and East Anglia scientists to make it up as they went along, with no chain of custody and with the raw data being “lost.”
This is the only opportunity that the ESA will have to show they are committed to honest science. Let’s hope they don’t squander it for the money, status and unaccountability that has so thoroughly corrupted government climate science.
“…leading to new insights into how ice is responding to climate change and the role it plays in our ‘Earth system’.”
“We know from our radar satellites that sea ice extent is diminishing…”
“Earth Explorers are launched in direct response to issues identified by the scientific community and aim to improve our understanding of how the Earth system works and the effect that human activity is having on natural processes.”
What a pathetic waste of money. They already have their conclusions. Glaciers and sea ice never vary without evil human causes. These whack jobs are a pox on society.
I couldn’t resist.
Kazakhstan greatest country in the world.
All other countries are run by little girls.
Kazakhstan number one exporter of potassium.
Other countries have inferior potassium.