NASA launching space laser to track Earth's polar ice loss



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NASA researchers are using technology straight out of a science fiction novel to track Earth's changing climate with greater precision than ever before: space lasers.

Next month, the space agency will launch the Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) about 300 miles above Earth, where it will use six lasers to measure the changing heights of Earth's polar ice over the course of its three-year mission.

The $1.1 billion mission "will advance our knowledge of how the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica contribute to sea level rise," said Michael Freilich, director of the Earth Science Division in NASA's Science Mission Directorate, in a statement.

MELTING ICE: Antarctic ice loss has tripled since 2012, NASA researchers find

Melting ice sheets and glaciers — caused by global warming — is one of the primary reasons sea level is rising across the globe. Sea level rises an average of .3 centimeters per year, according to NASA researchers, and a study published in conjunction with the European Space Agency in June found that Antarctic ice loss has tripled since 2012, causing sea levels across the globe to rise faster now than ever before in history.

This could have huge ramifications in coastal areas, such as Houston and Galveston. A recent study conducted by Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi found that in 2100, sea level rise (estimated to be 2.4 feet by that time) would cause 10 feet of water to inundate the area 12 hours prior to a hurricane's landfall. It would only get worse when the hurricane made landfall.

CATASTROPHIC DAMAGE: Sea level rise would drastically increase damage from hurricanes around Galveston Bay, study finds

But predicting how much sea level will rise over the next century — and how it will impact humans — can be difficult. That's where ICESat-2 comes into play.

Using a laser that sends 10,000 pulses per second, the satellite will measure the average yearly elevation change of Antarctica and Greenland ice to within the width of a pencil.

"In the time it takes a person to blink, [the laser] will have taken 5,000 measurements," said Tom Neumann, the mission's deputy project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. "And it will do that every minute of every hours of every day for the next three years."

ICESat-2 has been in the works for about 10 years. It is the second iteration of this satellite. The first — which used a much less precise laser — was operational from 2003 to 2009 and provided the space agency with elevation data needed to determine the mass balance of Earth's ice sheets, as well as information about cloud properties. It was decommissioned in 2010.

Despite President Donald Trump's take on climate change, NASA has continued to work on missions including ICESat-2 and others like it.

READ MORE: Trump's budget axes 5 climate change projects from NASA

Earlier this year, the agency also launched the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO), tasked with measuring changes in how mass is redistributed within Earth's atmosphere, land oceans and ice sheets.

Neither were among the five climate change-related projects that Trumped wants to eliminate in his $19.9 billion NASA budget for the coming fiscal year. That budget must be approved by Congress.

ICESat-2 is scheduled to launch on Sept. 15 from California-based Vandenberg Air Force Base. The mission is slated for three years, but it can be extended to as many as 10 years.

Alex Stuckey covers NASA and the environment for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey.