Article Tags: World Temperatures
The first satellite to measure Arctic and Antarctic ice in detail has successfully taken off.
The ‘ice mission’, led by British scientists, will show how melting ice could affect weather patterns in the future in the so called “Day After Tomorrow” scenario. The European Space Agency satellite, that cost £122 million to build, took off on a Russian launcher rocket from Kazakhstan and has already sent signals back to Earth.
Duncan Wingham, a climate physicist at University College London, was relieved to see the launch after a previous attempt landed in the sea five years ago. The 1,543 pound CyroSat 2 will be able to measure the thickness of Arctic and Antarctic ice to within a centimetre – an accuracy unmatched until now.
The film The Day After Tomorrow imagined that the melting of the polar ice caps would cause a second ice age by reversing the gulf stream. Prof Wingham said that scenario was “silly” but the satellite will give scientists a better idea of how fast Polar ice is melting, which can affect weather systems around the world, including in the UK.
“If anything, this mission is even more important now than a decade ago when we first proposed it,” he said.
Source: telegraph.co.uk