New mission to track changes in the cryosphere

Published 2024-02-22
Tracking ice lost from the world’s glaciers, ice sheets and frozen land shows that Earth is losing ice at an accelerating rate. Monitoring the cryosphere is crucial for assessing, predicting and adapting to climate change.

The Copernicus Polar Ice and Snow Topography Altimeter (CRISTAL) mission will provide a full picture of the changes taking place in some of the most inhospitable regions of the world. It will carry – for the first time – a dual-frequency radar altimeter, and microwave radiometer, that will measure and monitor sea-ice thickness, overlying snow depth and ice-sheet elevations.

These data will support maritime operations in the polar oceans and contribute to a better understanding of climate processes. CRISTAL will also support applications related to coastal and inland waters, as well as providing observations of ocean topography.

CRISTAL is one of six Copernicus Sentinel Expansion missions that ESA is developing on behalf of the EU. The missions will expand the current capabilities of the Copernicus Space Component – the world’s biggest supplier of Earth observation data.

This video features interviews with Kristof Gantois, CRISTAL Project Manager and Paolo Cipollini, CRISTAL Mission Scientist.

Credits: ESA - European Space Agency

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All Comments (21)
  • @user-re1lu4nv9o
    I wish lots of scientific projects were explained this way. Thank you so much. People has to be aware of what scientists are doing but also be aware by easy explanations what is really happening.
  • @photoo848
    Many thanks to all the people and institutions who contributed to make this happen
  • @ptonpc
    Safe flight and thank you to all involved with this.
  • @CKS1432
    Congrulations ESA.Nice job🖒
  • @dragossorin85
    Good approach, these measurements/observations are very important, with this data you can get a future trajectory or in other words we know what's to come, once observations have enough exposure and records what's to come can be calculated
  • @SR-SE7EN
    Good measure ESA. Track the change and take measures to change the Earth.
  • Thank you video brilliant compliment explanation exhaustive project very illuminated.
  • @mireillefloure
    Merci "esaNewMissionInTheCryosphere-..."... Milli ⚜ 🌌
  • @postsurrealfish
    As this is polar mission, will you have any sort of suite of plasma probes on board with it measuring changes in electrical currents and plasma densities etc? As it is at the poles, where the earth's electrical currents from the sun come in, with the return current in the circuit also exiting the planet.
  • @Privacityuser
    So many questions? Just in the north hemisfere? I bet the south is better conservated!
  • We may have to go and harvest polar ice, take to hot desert landscapes to green the planet, before the ice melts into the ocean.