Researchers to fly unmanned planes over Greenland

Unmanned airplanes flying over Greenland's ice sheet this month are expected to help scientists monitor melting.

A team of scientists from the University of Colorado and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are flying two small, crewless planes over a portion of the ice sheet. The remote-control airplane operation, with the pilot stationed on the icy island, will allow scientists to probe into territory where dangerous conditions have limited research.

Scientists are heralding the mission as the next era of Arctic exploration.

Researchers want to understand meltwater-fed lakes, said field campaign coordinator John Adler, a Colorado university doctoral student and NOAA Corps officer. They also want to study the lakes' relationships with ice sheet movements.

They are curious whether the lakes can signal how much water will drain from the ice sheet, he said. When the glacier moves, it forms cracks, holes and cylinder-like shafts that allow water to quickly drain.

"We want to know how much water is on top of the ice sheet, where it goes and how much it takes to influence how fast the ice sheet slides to sea," Adler said.

Adler is studying under Professor Konrad Steffen, director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, a joint institute of CU's Boulder campus and NOAA.

Researchers have been closely monitoring Greenland's climate over the past few decades to see whether the ice sheet is shrinking, Steffen said. Greenland is currently shedding about 50 cubic miles per year, he said.

Steffen runs a research camp on the ice sheet and directs a network of 22 stations on the ice known as the Greenland Climate Network. He said there's a link between the melt lakes and the melting ice sheet.

"They may allow water to drain to the bottom of the ice sheet and lubricate the base," Steffen said.

The two planes, which are called Mantas, were developed by Advanced Ceramics Research Inc., based in Tucson, Ariz. The planes are less than six feet long and small enough to fit in the bed of a pickup truck. They will carry a digital camera, atmospheric temperature and pressure sensors and other science tools.

The Mantas will be able to fly between 500 and 1,000 feet above the surface, which is a lower altitude than would be possible with a manned plane.

By measuring the amount of sunlight penetrating the lake water, researchers can estimate lake depth and the potential amounts of water that could drain through the ice sheet and out to sea, according to CU.

Betsy Weatherhead, one of the two lead scientists for NOAA's program in the Arctic, said the unmanned aircraft would be a key tool in monitoring marine mammals and the thinning Arctic sea ice.

"Getting measurements over the Arctic is very difficult, and we don't understand much about the Arctic because of that," she said. "That window is now open. This is a major breakthrough."

(Contact Brittany Anas of the Daily Camera in Boulder, Co., at Anasb(at)dailycamera.com.)