Introduction

For years NASA has conducted expeditions to collect ice data. The space center has used satellites with visible and infrared sensors to collect vital ice sheet information. Although valuable information was collected, it was often difficult for the satellites to obtain information through the clouds and polar darkness of the arctic environment. NASA has also used microwave radiation to collect information on the ice sheet patterns in the Arctic and Antarctic. Images from the Landsat satellites have been used to measure ice flow rates and also to design photo maps of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

PRISM

The Polar Radar for Ice Sheet Measurements (PRISM) project aims to design and develop an autonomous mobile radar system to measure polar ice sheets. PRISM is a five year 8.7 million dollar research effort funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation and NASA. The research project is currently in its third year and includes a team of over 40 faculty, staff and students working at the University of Kansas’s Information and Telecommunications Technology Center as well as at institutions around the globe .