It may have been a beautiful warm spring weekend in Europe, but the team starting the second phase of the Cryovex and KAREN campaign in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, Canada, have had to hunker down to wait out a blizzard.

Blizzard. (DTU)

Rather than take to the skies to measure the ice below, the team from the Technical University of Denmark spent the weekend finishing up reports while waiting for the blizzard to pass.

Before the bad weather hit, they were, however, able to fly under the SARAL satellite and take measurements. The French–Indian SARAL satellite carries the AltiKa instrument, which is the first spaceborne altimeter that works in Ka-band.

The measurements they made will be used to help assess whether a new type of satellite sensor that works using Ku-band (like CryoSat) and Ka-band would give even better information on ice thickness.

The team is hoping to get over to Alert today to continue their field work.

Post from: Henriette Skourup (DTU)

Read more about the campaign: To the Arctic for CryoSat and beyond