The Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite – 2 (ICESat-2): Mission Status, Science Results, and Outlook

The Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 has entered it’s second year on orbit, and continues to collect high-quality measurements of the changing cryosphere. The Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS) has now emitted more than 500 billion laser shots which provide elevation measurements of sea ice and the polar oceans, glaciers and ice sheets, the world’s forests, oceans, lakes and rivers in addition to vertical profiles of clouds and aerosols. ATLAS is an innovated lidar technology that utilizes low power and higher repetition rates to collect measurements every 70 cm along-track. These measurements have been shown to have high precision and accuracy comparable to or better than past and present cryospheric missions. The ICESat-2 data has also shown great promise with its ability to act as both complementary observations to many other missions as well as allow for us to extend the timeseries associated with our understanding of elevation and mass change in the polar regions. In this presentation, we will provide an update on the operations and health of the observatory, review the many available data products served through the National Snow and Ice Data Center in the US, and highlight the early science results from the mission. As of this writing, more than 2.5 million data granules have been downloaded by 1500 unique data users. Initial science papers have documented the ongoing loss of mass from the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, the ability of ICESat-2 to measure the seasonal changes in sea ice freeboard and thickness throughout the year, and the potential for world-wide measurements of coastal bathymetry.