Nasa is set to launch a pair of satellite missions and a collection of airborne campaigns this year in order to study the Earth’s frozen regions, including ice sheets, sea ice, glaciers, snow cover, and permafrost, collectively called ‘cryosphere’.

One of them includes the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission, which will be jointly launched by Nasa and the German Research Centre for Geosciences.

GRACE-FO will feature two satellites to continue the original GRACE mission’s goal of tracking fluctuations in Earth’s gravity field with an aim to detect changes in mass, including the mass of ice sheets and aquifers.

“GRACE-FO and ICESat-2 will use innovative techniques to study the changing patterns of Greenland and Antarctica’s ice sheets and their contribution to rising sea levels.”

The Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) mission will be designed to employ a highly advanced laser instrument to measure the changing elevation of ice across the world. It will offer a view of the height of Earth’s ice with more detail than before.

Both missions are expected to make critical, complementary measurements of Earth’s glaciers and ice sheets.

They will also make various other observations. GRACE-FO will measure groundwater reserves and deep ocean currents, while ICESat-2 will measure sea ice thickness and vegetation height.

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GRACE-FO and ICESat-2 will use innovative techniques to study the changing patterns of Greenland and Antarctica’s ice sheets and their contribution to rising sea levels.

This year, Nasa intends to continue two major cryosphere airborne and field campaigns that feature Operation IceBridge and Oceans Melting Greenland.

Operation IceBridge has been providing a multi-dimensional view of Greenland, Antarctica, and sea ice since 2009.

The Oceans Melting Greenland campaign is managed by Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It is designed to observe the interaction between ocean waters and Greenland’s glaciers that terminate in the ocean.