Sea Ice

Experience the sounds and senses of the remote polar regions through NASA’s Sea Ice Scientist in the Field, Dr. Rachel Tilling. This recording is a complement to NASA’s latest tactile book: “Earth: A Tactile View of the Blue Marble.”

Dr. Rachel Tilling is a sea ice scientist with the Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Her research focuses on using satellites to monitor changes in the global sea ice cover. Rachel's research has taken her on expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic with the European Space Agency (ESA) and British Antarctic Survey (BAS), where she investigates ground-based radar measurements over sea ice for satellite validation.

A view of the Arctic Ocean with ICESat-2 monthly average sea ice thickness data from November 2018 to April 2021. Low values are depicted in light blue, and higher values (5 meters) are depicted in magenta.

This animation shows how ICESat-2 measures sea ice thickness.