NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC)

The NASA Operation IceBridge mission collects airborne remote sensing measurements to bridge the gap between the first NASA Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), which stopped collecting data in 2009, and ICESat-2. The IceBridge data portal helps researchers locate and access data through a map-based interface.

The rising interest in Arctic sea ice is the inverse of its decline: less ice equates to more demand for reliable data on sea ice conditions. But with decades of data from multiple satellite sensors and multiple research groups, where do researchers turn for the most reliable long-term view? In answer, NSIDC has produced a Climate Data Record for sea ice concentration, an important indicator of sea ice health and Arctic climate.

NASA is making sure Earth data, called Earth system data records (ESDRs), remain valid. The NASA Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) program supports scientists who make these long-term ESDRs in their area of speciality.

Jakobshavn is not the only runaway glacier in Greenland—and together, faster moving glaciers are draining ice from the Greenland Ice Sheet into the ocean, adding to sea level rise.

NSIDC researchers are exploring an unexpected risk to the US Rocky Mountain snowpack and Western water supplies: a coating of desert dust. This desert dust landing on mountain snow may reduce water supplies for cities, agriculture, and industry far downstream.

Antarctica's remote location and harsh conditions make it extremely difficult to map its thousands of miles of jagged coastline, its remote mountain ranges, and its vast ice sheet. NSIDC scientists helped solve that problem by combining more than 260 satellite images, mapping the surface and topography of the continent into a product called the Mosaic of Antarctica (MOA).