What was the purpose of CryoVEx AEM?

ESA operates the CryoSat mission which is dedicated to the measurement of sea ice thickness in the Arctic. Numerous CryoSat Validation Experiments (CryoVEx) have been performed over the past several years. York University led the CryoVEx 2014 field campaign, also refered to as CryoVEx AEM, to obtain ground-truth data from Arctic sea ice to validate the satellite measurements.

CryoVEx 2014 was carried out in March and April 2014, a large, international field campaign in the Arctic to obtain these validation measurements. It included airborne ice thickness surveys with York University's airborne electromagnetic (AEM) ice thickness profiler, and in-situ measurements on ice floes visited by aircraft.

What was the outcome of CryoVEx AEM?

The CryoVEX 2014 campaign performed measurements over the Beaufort Sea and Arctic Ocean north of Canada (Ellesmere Island) and Greenland. Airborne surveys and ground-based snow and ice measurements were performed. In the Beaufort Sea the ground-based measurements were carried out at two ice camps operated by the University of Washington for the Office of Naval Research Marginal Ice Zone project.

Seven AEM surveys were carried out between 18 and 31 March.

Due to a severe blizzard on 26 and 27 March, major damage occurred on the EM Bird. Most components were successfully replaced. However, the on-board GPS system had failed and could not be replaced or repaired. Therefore only positional data from a hand held GPS inside the aircraft cabin is available.

Download the CryoVEx AEM Final Report

Digital Object Identifier: https://doi.org/10.5270/esa-z1k7u74 - CryoVEx AEM: "CryoVEx 2014 Final Report"

The campaign data are available online via FTP upon submission of a data access request. An active EO Sign In account is required to submit the request.

Data from the campaign are also available to download from the CS2EO portal.

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