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Polar year

Since ice plays a crucial role in moderating the Earth's climate it is important to understand any changes that might be occurring in the polar regions. While measuring the extent of polar ice is relatively easy, accurately measuring the fluctuations in ice thickness is much more difficult to achieve. ESA plans to address this issue with the launch of CryoSat-2 in 2009.

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Scientists from across the world are studying the polar regions to scrutinise any changes in ice cover and the potential effect this might have on our future. Over the next 18 months, the high latitudes are currently also top of the agenda as the International Polar Year 2007-2008 began on 1 March 2007.

The system of heat transportation is one of the main drivers of weather and climate and snow and ice play an important part in regulating this system in a number of ways. As solar radiation reaches the Earth's atmosphere and surface, a certain percentage is reflected back out to space. Being white, ice and snow have a very high albedo so that most of the incident radiation is reflected away from the surface of the Earth. The thickness of sea ice plays a central role in polar climate as it moderates heat transport by insulating the ocean from the cold polar atmosphere. In addition, when ice forms or melts it changes the salinity and hence density of the surface waters, which along with temperature has a significant effect on certain global ocean circulation patterns.

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CryoSat-2 on the road to recovery ESA contribution to International Polar Year 2007-2008 Workshop on Antarctic sea-ice highlights need for CryoSat-2 mission Learning about Arctic Ocean circulation & ice thickness by gravity Climate Change students help CryoSat-2 Arctic campaign ESA confirms CryoSat recovery mission Polar explorer delivers rare snow-depth data to ESA for CryoSat validation

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CryoSat-2