LOS ANGELES: Nasa’s most advanced space laser satellite blasted off on Saturday on a mission to track ice loss around the world and improve forecasts of sea level rise as the climate warms. Cloaked in pre-dawn darkness, the $1-billion, half-tonne ICESat-2 launched aboard a Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 6:02 am.
“Three, two one, liftoff!” said a launch commentator on Nasa television.
“Lifting ICESat-2 on a quest to explore the polar ice sheets of our constantly changing home planet.” The launch marks the first time in nearly a decade that Nasa has had a tool in orbit to measure ice sheet surface elevation across the globe.
The first ICESat revealed that sea ice was thinning, and ice cover was disappearing from coastal areas in Greenland and Antarctica.
In the intervening nine years, an aircraft mission called Operation IceBridge, has flown over the Arctic and Antarctic, taking height measurements of the changing ice.
But a view from space — especially with the latest technology — should be far more precise.
An update is particularly urgent since global average temperatures have climbed year after year, with four of the hottest years in
modern times all taking place from 2014-2017. — AFP
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