This corner reflector is a radar reflecting device made from a metal frame and
wire mesh. It suspends 4 different faces of wire mesh that are impenetrable to
radar, but allow snow to drift through it. When the microwaves hit the earth,
they are absorbed by the snow and reflected back up to the satellite by these
corner reflectors. The reflectors act as bookmarks so scientists can tell what part
of the image they are looking at. And you thought it was a jungle gym...
Don't try this at home, kids...
This hollow, motor driven fiberglass corer is used to remove a single meter section of ice for study. The corer is pushed vertically downward, in this case by a motor. Using the core, measurements of ice salinity, ice crystals, and structure can be made. These scientists are doing an Antarctic Experiment in the Weddell Sea.
The CSS Baffin is a research ship that is seen here penetrating the marginal ice zone in the Labrador Sea. The ice smooths out the roughness in the ocean, so it is often calm and quiet once the ship is well into the ice pack.
Boxes boxes boxes!
Here are a series of shipborne microwave and visible wavelength instruments.
The 3 on the left are passive microwave radiometers, and the 2 on the right
are a visible wavelength spectrometer and an infrared thermal emission sensor.
Lots of big words for some little boxes? Click here to
go back to the explanation of SAR for some insight.
The C band active microwave scatterometer is seen mounted on the rail of the Polarstern (which is German for "ice-breaking vessel"). If you missed the part about active and passive microwave systems, click here.
This sled is great for carrying friends and sledborne microwave radiometers. Measurements of ice properties from the small instruments seen here and in the above two pictures are used to verify what similar instruments measure from satellites.
A buoy or a spaceship? You make the call...
The Argos Buoy is shown here on deformed seasonal sea ice in the Weddell Sea. It transmits 3 hourly signals to a constellation of several earth orbiting satellites. As the ice moves, the buoy moves along with it. Triangulation by 3 or more satellites enables precise location of the buoy and therefore accurate knowledge of how fast and how much ice growth has occurred. The transmitter sits on the very top part of the buoy, and once its 1-year battery dies, well, that ends the life of the buoy.
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