NASA article on annual sea ice minimum, likely the 7th-lowest in the satellite record. Read the article here.

ICESat-2's Data repository, the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), describes the solar storms that affected ICESat-2 and how the satellite got back on track.  Read the article here. 

NASA’s ICESat-2 satellite returned to science mode on June 21 UTC, after solar storms in May caused its height-measuring instrument to go into a safe hold. Read more.

ICESat-2 goes in Safe Hold Mode May 10th, 2024, and is expected to resume operations mid-June.

 After Solar Storms, ICESat-2 Expected to Resume Operations in Mid-June   

Earth Observatory article about 2023's Sea Ice Minimum.

ICESat-2 Flies over the Super Bowl Stadium, Image of the Day featured in the Earth Observatory. Read about it here.

NASA Earth Observatory Image of the Day. Read about it here.

Every three months, the NASA Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) completes a comprehensive measurement of Earth’s surface, mapping our planet in cool three-dimensional details.

Over the past two decades, the Arctic has lost about one-third of its winter sea ice volume, largely due to a decline in sea ice that persists over several years, called multiyear ice, according to a new study. The study also found sea ice is likely thinner than previous estimates.

Before beaming 300 miles to Earth’s surface, bouncing off the ground and travelling another 300 miles back into space, ICESat-2's laser photons first have to complete a 7½-foot obstacle course inside the satellite’s instrument.

Close enough doesn’t cut it in the spacecraft assembly cleanroom at NASA Goddard’s Space Flight Center, where engineers built the elevation-measuring instrument to fly on ICESat-2

To time how long it takes a pulse of laser light to travel from space to Earth and back, you need a really good stopwatch — one that can measure within a fraction of a billionth of a second

In temperatures that can drop below -20 degrees Fahrenheit, along a route occasionally blocked by wind-driven ice dunes, a hundred miles from any other people, a team led by two NASA scientists will survey an unexplored stretch of Antarctic ice. 

They’re packing extreme cold-weather gear and scientific instruments onto sleds pulled by two tank-like snow machines called PistenBullys, and on Dec. 21 they will begin their two- to three-week traverse in an arc around the South Pole.

John Sonntag says every element of his job as a cryosphere scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, excites him.  

“I am a geek in every sense of the word,” he said. “I’m a nerd about weather, about airplanes, about computers; I love that stuff. So the idea that you can put all that stuff together and make a job out of it, that someone’s going to pay you to do it? That’s awesome.”

Only 25 glaciers remain inside Glacier National Park — down from 150 in the mid-19th century — and scientists estimate that these peaceful giants that sculpt the homes of grizzly bears and wildflowers will be gone by 2050.

Studying the cryosphere sometimes requires glaciologist Kelly Brunt to get out of the lab and onto icy terrain.