As the Earth's temperatures have continued to rise, scientists have been eyeing the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland with increasing unease. Combined, the two contain enough ice to raise ocean levels by over 60 meters if they were to melt completely. As they are clearly melting now, understanding how fast that melt will occur has a major say in humanity's near-term future. Where it stops will dictate some aspects of our long-term future.

But how do you actually study a giant pile of ice? The answer turns out to be "very carefully, and with a lot of high-tech equipment."

We got that answer from Marco Tedesco, a researcher at the City College of New York. While he's based in New York, Tedesco spends plenty of time in the polar regions, often on the surfaces of the ice caps themselves. There, he and his team study the ice and the melting process.

Some of that involves handheld equipment. Tedesco showed off a device that can analyze the spectrum of light it receives, allowing him to measure how ice absorbs and reflects light at different wavelengths—properties that are collectively termed the "albedo." He also has a drone helicopter that lets him get measurements from places that are harder to reach.

But the most unusual bit of hardware is a drone boat. During the Northern Hemisphere's summer, lakes form on the Greenland ice sheet's surface, and these can influence the dynamics of further melting. Determining how these lakes absorb and reflect sunlight is useful but potentially risky. The lakes can drain rapidly and suddenly, sending their contents (including anyone floating on them) on a very rapid ride to the base of the ice sheet.

So Tedesco found a drone boat, intended to take fishing lures to the middle of a lake well beyond casting distance. With a few modifications, it's able to carry scientific instruments to study the lake in safety.

Tedesco told Ars that these in situ measurements are critical to build a bigger picture of Greenland. It's possible to get imagery and spectral data of the entire ice sheet from space, but it's difficult to know how to interpret some of that data. By obtaining detailed information from the ice's surface, it's possible to correlate the two and build a far more complete picture of our shrinking ice sheets.