為了調查北極附近冰帽、冰河及海冰的狀況,美國太空總署(NASA)從格陵蘭圖勒空軍基地派出一架有特殊裝備的飛機。此基地位在北極圈北邊750英哩,是美國最北的軍事基地。
這次的飛行是「冰橋行動」的一部分。美國太空總署表示,冰橋行動為期六年,是有史以來作為調查地球極冰的最大飛行任務。
此任務為兩極的冰帽、冰棚及海冰帶來了三次元的面貌,太空總署表示,這是氣候變遷的重要指標。
「從兩極可看出地球氣候系統的預兆。因此,了解發生在北極的改變是非常重要的。」身為美國海軍官校的海洋學榮譽少校,艾瑞克‧布魯格勒(Eric Brugler)在任務的部落格中寫道。
「加拿大的冰帽明顯的較格陵蘭和南極的冰川小得多,但對於未來幾十年的海平面變遷仍會帶來關鍵性的重要影響。」冰圈計畫的副執行長查理斯‧維伯(Charles Webb)在美國太空總署馬里蘭綠帶哥達德太空飛行中心表示。
維伯也表示:「這些冰帽也能作為預警指標,它們比其他巨大的冰層對氣溫變遷的反應更為敏銳。」
其他冰橋任務會重新追蹤過去幾年的飛行路徑,例如彼得曼島、堪格陸素克等冰河,它們都是格陵蘭冰川的流失出口。
從這些多年來的數據中,科學家可以開始看出這些冰河目前如何變動, 哪裡的冰河融化正在減速或加速,以及它們的成因。
To probe the state of ice sheets, glaciers and sea ice near the North Pole, NASA is flying a specially equipped plane out of the U.S. armed forces' northernmost installation, the Thule Air Base in Greenland, 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle.
The flights are part of Operation IceBridge, a six-year mission that NASA says is the largest airborne survey of Earth's polar ice ever flown.
The mission is yielding an unprecedented three-dimensional view of ice sheets, ice shelves and sea ice at both poles that the space agency says are important indicators of climate change.
"Understanding the change happening in the Arctic is very important because the poles serve as harbingers for the Earth's climate system. Basically this means that the poles give insight into what changes will happen around the world before any other place on earth," wrote First Class Midshipmen Eric Brugler, an honors Oceanography major at the United States Naval Academy, in the mission's blog.
"The Canadian ice caps are notably smaller than the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, but are still significant potential contributors to sea-level change in the next few decades," said Charles Webb, deputy cryosphere program manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
"They also serve as potential early-warning indicators, responding more sensitively to temperature changes than the more massive ice sheets," Webb said.
Other IceBridge missions will retrace paths flown in previous years, such as flights over Petermann, Jacobshavn, Kangerlussuak and Helheim glaciers - the outlets through which Greenland loses mass from its ice sheet.
With this multi-year data, scientists can begin to see how such glaciers are changing, where ice loss is slowing or accelerating, and why.
全文及圖片詳見:ENS報導