ESA - CryoSat - Archive

ESA title

The mission

ESA’s Earth Explorer CryoSat mission is dedicated to measuring the thickness of polar sea ice and monitoring changes in the ice sheets that blanket Greenland and Antarctica. Its main payload is a SAR Interferometric Radar Altimeter, which is designed for ice, measuring changes at the margins of vast ice sheets and floating ice in polar oceans.

The launch

Date: 08 April 2010
Site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
Rocket: Russian/Ukrainian Dnepr based on SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missile

1st altimeter of its kind
10+ yrs in orbit
719 km mean altitude
92° inclination

CryoSat

Arctic diatoms

Will climate change turn the Arctic green?

18/06/2024 2578 views 9 likes

Full Earth disc from the Meteosat Third Generation Imager

10 ways Earth is interconnected

22/04/2024 3251 views 14 likes

Cadman Ice Shelf 2023 compared to 2017

Warming ocean causing rapid glacier retreat

28/11/2023 4340 views 103 likes

CryoSat

Enabling & Support

Life beyond the leak for ESA’s CryoSat

22/11/2023 7394 views 140 likes

Antarctic ice shelf melt

Antarctic ice shelf demise

13/10/2023 21382 views 118 likes

Adelie penguins on the Antarctic Peninsula

Antarctica vulnerable to extreme events

08/08/2023 6462 views 112 likes

Glacier ice loss visualised as a cube

CryoSat reveals ice loss from glaciers

26/04/2023 7909 views 90 likes

Prince Christian Sound, Greenland

Ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica hits new record

20/04/2023 22554 views 114 likes

10 remarkable Earth facts

18/04/2023 443526 views 2556 likes

Flying for CryoSat and ICESat-2 in Antarctica

Future-proofing ice measurements from space

19/01/2023 4249 views 76 likes

Summer meltwater ponds on sea ice in the Arctic Ocean

Taking the dazzle out of CryoSat yields a first

14/09/2022 3652 views 64 likes

A-68A’s position on 17 December

Mega iceberg released 152 billion tonnes of freshwater

20/01/2022 11006 views 80 likes

Explorers Jamie Facer Childs and Justin Packshaw

Kitesurfing the white wilderness for polar science

16/12/2021 3578 views 82 likes

Greenland meltwater runoff

Meltwater runoff from Greenland becoming more erratic

03/11/2021 6073 views 66 likes

Antarctica

Antarctic glacier named Glasgow to mark COP26

31/10/2021 4207 views 82 likes

Baltic Sea from Copernicus Sentinel-3

New satellite data techniques reveal coastal sea-level rise

07/07/2021 15615 views 112 likes

Victims of diminishing Arctic sea ice

Arctic coastal sea ice thinning twice as fast than thought

10/06/2021 4572 views 109 likes

Gulf of Alaska

CryoSat reveals ice loss from glaciers in Alaska and Asia

01/06/2021 5014 views 72 likes

CryoSat key to measuring sea-ice thickness

Arctic sea ice succumbs to Atlantification

21/05/2021 9535 views 133 likes

Getz glaciers flowing faster

Getz on the run

23/02/2021 4429 views 90 likes

Wetlands

Earth observation vital in monitoring wetland waters

02/02/2021 6120 views 88 likes

Earth is losing ice at record rate

Our world is losing ice at record rate

25/01/2021 16353 views 141 likes

Depth of the A-68A iceberg

A-68A iceberg thinning at 2.5 cm per day

23/12/2020 10461 views 125 likes

Thwaites glacier seen by Copernicus Sentinel-2

CryoSat reveals surprising ebb and flow of subglacial lakes

14/12/2020 4872 views 66 likes

Antarctic landscape

Places in Antarctica named in honour of ice scientists

09/12/2020 4097 views 61 likes

Industrial emissions of carbon dioxide fuel our warming climate

Providing the facts to help Europe achieve 55%

16/09/2020 3650 views 48 likes

Sea ice

CryoSat taken to new heights for ice science

03/08/2020 3159 views 50 likes

ESA's ice mission

CryoSat still cool at 10

08/04/2020 4408 views 69 likes

Greenland and Antarctica losing ice six times faster than e…

11/03/2020 16466 views 100 likes

CryoSat

CryoSat sheds new light on Antarctica’s biggest glacier

27/01/2020 4380 views 79 likes

Filchner-Ronne ice shelf advance 2011–18

CryoSat maps ice shelf on the move

13/12/2019 6724 views 98 likes

Polarstern

A year trapped in Arctic ice for climate science

24/09/2019 6352 views 121 likes

Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake

CryoSat conquers ice on Arctic lakes

05/08/2019 4564 views 88 likes

Bathymetry of Chukchi Cap

Expanding our knowledge of Arctic Ocean bathymetry

24/07/2019 5028 views 58 likes

Non-linear tides in the Barents Sea

Modelling tides in the Arctic Ocean

11/07/2019 4536 views 46 likes

Ice streams named

Antarctic glaciers named after satellites

07/06/2019 4688 views 60 likes

Antarctic ice loss 1992–2019

A quarter of glacier ice in West Antarctica is now unstable

16/05/2019 7552 views 114 likes

Jakobshavn Glacier

Jakobshavn Isbrae Glacier bucks the trend

14/05/2019 11757 views 117 likes

Cloud-free Europe

New observations for the new economy

08/03/2019 10359 views 89 likes

Losing ice

Greenland ice loss quickening

06/12/2018 8075 views 131 likes

Regional sea-level trends

Spotlight on sea-level rise

25/09/2018 14988 views 97 likes

Antarctica hikes up sea level

13/06/2018 9822 views 158 likes

Antarctica in 3D

New view of Antarctica in 3D

11/05/2018 20778 views 111 likes

CryoSat reveals retreat of Patagonian glaciers

02/05/2018 8447 views 138 likes

Shifting grounding lines

Antarctica loses grip

03/04/2018 10422 views 164 likes

Secrets of hidden ice canyons revealed

11/10/2017 17305 views 147 likes

CryoSat reveals iceberg

Giant iceberg in the making

05/07/2017 29904 views 224 likes

Antarctica in 3D

CryoSat reveals Antarctica in 3D

24/03/2017 23530 views 166 likes

Sea ice

To the Arctic for CryoSat and beyond

20/03/2017 4840 views 69 likes

Four lakes under Thwaites

CryoSat reveals lake outbursts beneath Antarctic ice

08/02/2017 8993 views 139 likes

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