Welcome to ‘The Frozen Frontier: Monitoring the Greenland ice sheet from space’. In this course, we will introduce you to the powerful role of satellite ‘Earth observation’ (EO) technology in monitoring the Greenland ice sheet, and to the beautiful and inspiring nature of the imagery and data it produces.

The vast ice sheets that overlie Greenland and Antarctica hold over 99% of all the surface freshwater on Earth. If this ice were to melt, it has the potential to contribute greatly to global sea level rise. In order to fully understand how climate change is affecting these remote but sensitive regions, we need to determine how the thickness of the ice is changing.

This course will provide you with an overview of the role of ice in the climate system and the impact and implications of a warming climate on the Greenland ice sheet. You will also learn about the types of measurements possible from satellites like Cryosat and the technologies and techniques involved.

This course focuses principally on Earth observation from space and therefore relates mainly to satellite remote sensing. However, it will also look at some similar forms of remote sensing often conducted from aircraft or ground based sensors. Throughout the course, the terms ‘Earth observation’ and ‘remote sensing’ are often used interchangeably. Also, don’t forget that the word ‘data’ in the context of satellite EO can refer to optical imagery and photography, as well as to so-called ‘geospatial’ and numerical data derived from other forms of sensors.

Essentially, ‘geospatial data’ refers to the information extracted or inferred from measurements at a specific geographical location. A full glossary of terms used in this course is provided in Step 1.4, which you can refer back to at any time during the course.

You will also have an opportunity to directly interact with certain types of EO datasets via online tools during the course, and there is more on this in the next step.

The main topic videos are the backbone of this course, and you can re-watch them as much as you need to. For further context and more detailed explanations, you can also read the introductory text provided with each video, explore the optional ‘further reading’ links, and look in-depth at information about the data, imagery and satellites provided in each topic.

The course videos begin with Topic 1a in step 1.5. Before that, over the next few steps we have provided a bit more information about the course educators and how to get the most out of this course.

We hope you enjoy the course.

Acknowledgements

This course has been designed and produced for ESA by Imperative Space. The producers would like to thank all of the academics, experts and institutions who have contributed to and supported production of the course. This includes the universities and research centres to which our onscreen experts are affiliated.

The overseeing editors of this course are Dr Pierre-Philippe Mathieu for ESA and Ravi Kapur for Imperative Space.

Special thanks goes to: Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL); WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research (SLF); Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at Leeds University (CPOM); and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

All NASA and ESA imagery and animations used throughout this course are used courtesy of NASA and ESA.

Throughout the course you can download the videos and transcripts as well as complete quizzes, using the links on the right.