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

Full Earth disc from the Meteosat Third Generation Imager

10 ways Earth is interconnected

22/04/2024 1154 views 12 likes

Cadman Ice Shelf 2023 compared to 2017

Warming ocean causing rapid glacier retreat

28/11/2023 3766 views 102 likes

CryoSat

Enabling & Support

Life beyond the leak for ESA’s CryoSat

22/11/2023 7006 views 138 likes

Antarctic ice shelf melt

Antarctic ice shelf demise

13/10/2023 20561 views 117 likes

Adelie penguins on the Antarctic Peninsula

Antarctica vulnerable to extreme events

08/08/2023 6066 views 112 likes

Glacier ice loss visualised as a cube

CryoSat reveals ice loss from glaciers

26/04/2023 7464 views 89 likes

Prince Christian Sound, Greenland

Ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica hits new record

20/04/2023 21014 views 114 likes

10 remarkable Earth facts

18/04/2023 268908 views 2302 likes

Flying for CryoSat and ICESat-2 in Antarctica

Future-proofing ice measurements from space

19/01/2023 3985 views 75 likes

Summer meltwater ponds on sea ice in the Arctic Ocean

Taking the dazzle out of CryoSat yields a first

14/09/2022 3486 views 64 likes

A-68A’s position on 17 December

Mega iceberg released 152 billion tonnes of freshwater

20/01/2022 10868 views 80 likes

Explorers Jamie Facer Childs and Justin Packshaw

Kitesurfing the white wilderness for polar science

16/12/2021 3450 views 82 likes

Greenland meltwater runoff

Meltwater runoff from Greenland becoming more erratic

03/11/2021 5673 views 66 likes

Antarctica

Antarctic glacier named Glasgow to mark COP26

31/10/2021 4110 views 82 likes

Baltic Sea from Copernicus Sentinel-3

New satellite data techniques reveal coastal sea-level rise

07/07/2021 15140 views 112 likes

Victims of diminishing Arctic sea ice

Arctic coastal sea ice thinning twice as fast than thought

10/06/2021 4406 views 109 likes

Gulf of Alaska

CryoSat reveals ice loss from glaciers in Alaska and Asia

01/06/2021 4839 views 72 likes

CryoSat key to measuring sea-ice thickness

Arctic sea ice succumbs to Atlantification

21/05/2021 9371 views 133 likes

Getz glaciers flowing faster

Getz on the run

23/02/2021 4324 views 90 likes

Wetlands

Earth observation vital in monitoring wetland waters

02/02/2021 5904 views 86 likes

Earth is losing ice at record rate

Our world is losing ice at record rate

25/01/2021 15365 views 140 likes

Depth of the A-68A iceberg

A-68A iceberg thinning at 2.5 cm per day

23/12/2020 10357 views 125 likes

Thwaites glacier seen by Copernicus Sentinel-2

CryoSat reveals surprising ebb and flow of subglacial lakes

14/12/2020 4780 views 66 likes

Antarctic landscape

Places in Antarctica named in honour of ice scientists

09/12/2020 3910 views 60 likes

Industrial emissions of carbon dioxide fuel our warming climate

Providing the facts to help Europe achieve 55%

16/09/2020 3588 views 48 likes

Sea ice

CryoSat taken to new heights for ice science

03/08/2020 3112 views 50 likes

ESA's ice mission

CryoSat still cool at 10

08/04/2020 4295 views 69 likes

Greenland and Antarctica losing ice six times faster than e…

11/03/2020 16069 views 100 likes

CryoSat

CryoSat sheds new light on Antarctica’s biggest glacier

27/01/2020 4325 views 79 likes

Filchner-Ronne ice shelf advance 2011–18

CryoSat maps ice shelf on the move

13/12/2019 6459 views 98 likes

Polarstern

A year trapped in Arctic ice for climate science

24/09/2019 6234 views 121 likes

Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake

CryoSat conquers ice on Arctic lakes

05/08/2019 4507 views 88 likes

Bathymetry of Chukchi Cap

Expanding our knowledge of Arctic Ocean bathymetry

24/07/2019 4794 views 58 likes

Non-linear tides in the Barents Sea

Modelling tides in the Arctic Ocean

11/07/2019 4378 views 46 likes

Ice streams named

Antarctic glaciers named after satellites

07/06/2019 4419 views 59 likes

Antarctic ice loss 1992–2019

A quarter of glacier ice in West Antarctica is now unstable

16/05/2019 7401 views 114 likes

Jakobshavn Glacier

Jakobshavn Isbrae Glacier bucks the trend

14/05/2019 11303 views 117 likes

Cloud-free Europe

New observations for the new economy

08/03/2019 10194 views 88 likes

Losing ice

Greenland ice loss quickening

06/12/2018 7948 views 131 likes

Regional sea-level trends

Spotlight on sea-level rise

25/09/2018 14159 views 96 likes

Antarctica hikes up sea level

13/06/2018 9697 views 158 likes

Antarctica in 3D

New view of Antarctica in 3D

11/05/2018 18720 views 108 likes

CryoSat reveals retreat of Patagonian glaciers

02/05/2018 8334 views 138 likes

Shifting grounding lines

Antarctica loses grip

03/04/2018 10287 views 163 likes

Secrets of hidden ice canyons revealed

11/10/2017 17096 views 147 likes

CryoSat reveals iceberg

Giant iceberg in the making

05/07/2017 29781 views 224 likes

Antarctica in 3D

CryoSat reveals Antarctica in 3D

24/03/2017 22855 views 166 likes

Sea ice

To the Arctic for CryoSat and beyond

20/03/2017 4745 views 69 likes

Four lakes under Thwaites

CryoSat reveals lake outbursts beneath Antarctic ice

08/02/2017 8896 views 139 likes

Ice thickness from CryoSat and SMOS

Satellite cousins have ice covered

16/12/2016 4050 views 63 likes

1 2 3 4 >