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Unmanned flights give peek at melting ice
The two unmanned Manta planes will help scientists determine whether the ice sheet's melt rate will accelerate, Betsy Weatherhead of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory said in a news release.
A view of the region from 500-1,000 feet above the ice can provide fine-scale measurements of the water and surface of the glaciers, said Weatherhead, a scientist for the Arctic test bed of NOAA's Unmanned Aircraft Systems program. The Mantas can provide that view, cruising at low altitudes over little-known terrain without endangering humans.
The Greenland Ice Sheet is shrinking at a rate of 40-50 cubic miles annually, a pace that's accelerating, NOAA said. Better observations could help explain the role of short-lived surface lakes and why the edges of the ice sheet are melting so fast.
"We're concerned that as temperatures rise, more heat will cause more melting, more melting will create bigger lakes, and the rate of ice loss will accelerate," said NOAA's John Adler, the project manager.
The unmanned flights will last three weeks.
Copyright 2008 by United Press International
This news arrived on: 07/16/2008
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Posted Comments:
07-18-2008 11:02
BNWalkup wrote:
Ice Sheet Melting
Some of the comments that have hit the news recently are absolutely obvious conclusions! The matters that pertain to the condition of our cooling system (ie:the polar ice sheets) have long been studied and they keep coming to the same conclusions. Procrastination in these cases can be killers!
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