Unmanned flights give peek at melting ice

Washington -- Aircraft flying over Greenland will offer a view of the melting Greenland Ice Sheet and its potential for raising the global sea level, U.S. scientists said.

The two unmanned Manta planes will help scientists determine whether the ice sheet's melt rate will accelerate, Betsy Weatherhead of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory said in a news release.

A view of the region from 500-1,000 feet above the ice can provide fine-scale measurements of the water and surface of the glaciers, said Weatherhead, a scientist for the Arctic test bed of NOAA's Unmanned Aircraft Systems program. The Mantas can provide that view, cruising at low altitudes over
little-known terrain without endangering humans.

The Greenland Ice Sheet is shrinking at a rate of 40-50 cubic miles annually, a pace that's accelerating, NOAA said. Better observations could help explain the role of short-lived surface lakes and why the edges of the ice sheet are melting so fast.

"We're concerned that as temperatures rise, more heat will cause more melting, more melting will create bigger lakes, and the rate of ice loss will accelerate," said NOAA's John Adler, the project manager.
The unmanned flights will last three weeks.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International.