NASA announced on Thursday last week that both the 痳豆在线 STRIVE team and the UW-affiliated EDGE team were selected to lead satellite missions to better understand Earth and improve capabilities to foresee environmental events and mitigate disasters.


NASA announced on Thursday last week that both the 痳豆在线 STRIVE team and the UW-affiliated EDGE team were selected to lead satellite missions to better understand Earth and improve capabilities to foresee environmental events and mitigate disasters.

A project led by the 痳豆在线 to better understand our atmosphere鈥檚 complexity is a finalist for NASA鈥檚 next generation of Earth-observing satellites. STRIVE will receive $5 million to conduct a one-year concept study, and then will hear whether it is selected for launch.

UW glaciologist Ben Smith shared a first look at the NASA ICESat-2 satellite鈥檚 view of Greenland and Antarctic glaciers at the American Geophysical Union鈥檚 annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Two UW polar scientists were among a dozen experts who advised NASA on its upcoming ICESat-2 mission to monitor the 3D surface of the Earth. The mission is scheduled to launch Sept. 15 from California.

Drainage of four interconnected lakes below Thwaites Glacier in late 2013 caused only a 10 percent increase in the glacier’s speed. The glacier’s recent speedup is therefore not due to changes in meltwater flow along its underside.

UW researchers this month are on missions to fly above the Arctic Ocean to measure glacier melt, polar storms and Arctic sea ice.

Climatologists have reconciled their measurements of ice loss in Antarctica and Greenland during the past two decades. A second article looks at how to monitor and understand accelerating losses from the planet’s two largest continental ice sheets.