# Presentation: 437408

## SAR/InSAR Cryosphere Breakout Session

- Oct 20, 2004

## Big Questions

- Understand glaciers and ice sheets sufficiently to predict their role in sea level rise.
- How does sea ice respond to and influence global climate change and biological processes?
- How do changes in the cryosphere affect human activity?
- How much water is stored as seasonal snow and how is it changing?
- How much carbon is exchanged between the permafrost and the atmosphere?

## Science Activities with Existing Systems/Archives

- SAR-derived surface motion and imagery currently support:
- Studies aimed at understanding processes such as ice sheet and sea ice dynamics.
- Baseline measurements such as glacier discharge, sea ice motion and extent.
- Studies to develop snow cover and permafrost algorithms.

## Access to Existing Archive and Systems

- Room for improvement, but overall pretty good for polar regions  (with notable exceptions).
- Poor for mid-latitude regions

## Planned Systems

- Planned systems such as Radarsat-2 and TerraSAR X could build upon current capabilities.
- Current and planned systems could begin to build time series of observations.

## Plans for cooperative use of satellites nearing deployment?

- No firm agreements identified.
- Potential for continued RADARSAT-1 operations beyond RADARSAT 2 launch.
- Future agreements for planned systems desperately needed
-  especially over the next 5-10 years before a US mission is launched.
- No approved missions beyond 2011!

## Limitations of current and planned systems

- Inadequate systematic coverage of the Arctic and the Southern Oceans.
- Reduces sea ice motion monitoring and climate time series.
- Planned and existing systems are not optimized for InSAR.
- Problematic for important areas of  Greenland and Antarctica.
- Very limited mountain glacier coverage.

## Science goals satisfied with a new InSAR mission: 

- ECHO Baseline (8-day repeat, polar-orbiting, tightly-controlled orbit, L-band, left-right looking)
- All ice sheet and glacier objectives related to surface motion.
- Would provide coverage in areas where current/planned systems are problematic (some of which are the largest contributors to sea level change).
- Frequent coverage for characterizing outlet glacier variability.
- ECHO+ (Fully calibrated, ScanSAR, power/storage for full Arctic and Southern Ocean Coverage)
- Meets sea ice motion research objectives.

## Desired Additional Capabilities

- Near real-time access for operational ice monitoring.
- Dual or Quad polarization might enhance some science objectives.

## Conclusions

- No Data  No Science
- No Funding  No Science
- No dedicated mission  diminished science

## Solutions

- Current
- Cryospheric science has benefited from pre-arranged agreements, polar ground stations, data management facilities.
- Short term
- Develop new cooperative agreements
- Long term
- Dedicated “ECHO+” series of missions backed by cooperative agreements.
- Comprehensive arrangements with international partners to fulfill  cryospheric objectives
- No opportunities exist yet.

## Sea Ice

- How does sea ice respond to and influence global climate change ?
- How does sea ice moderate and modulate surface fluxes?
- Ice albedo feedback
- thermohaline circulation
- Moisture/energy/boundary layer exchange
- How are the mass balance and extent changing?
- How do spatiotemporal changes in sea ice affect biological processes and human activities?

## Glaciers and Ice Sheets

- Understand glaciers and ice sheets sufficiently to predict their role in sea level rise.
- What is the current mass balance and its contribution to sea level rise?
- What processes (e.g., fast flow, ice shelf melt) control ice sheet discharge and how are they affected by environmental change?
- Do recently observed changes in discharge normal variability or do they indicate a longer-term trend?
- How is the global distribution of alpine glaciers changing?

## Snow Cover

- How much snow is there? Where is it? How does it influence the climate?
- How much water is stored as seasonal snow?
- What is the thermal capacity and resistance of snow cover on land and sea ice?
- How is snow cover changing over space and time.

## Permafrost

- What is the current distribution of permafrost?
- How does this distribution respond to climate change?
- How much carbon is exchanged between the permafrost and the atmosphere?

## Programmatic Limitations of current and planned systems 

- No access (including funding) to planned systems and data volumes needed.
- No acquisition plans designed to meet science objectives.