Students will watch a video on the Greenland Ice Sheet and answer questions.

Students connect day/night and seasonal cycles with albedo in the Arctic region. 

The advance-and-retreat cycle of snow cover drastically changes the whiteness and brightness of Earth. Using two maps created using NASA satellite data for 2017, students review the seasonal differences of snow and ice extent and answer questions on their observations.

This series of videos highlights how NASA Climate Scientists use mathematics to solve everyday problems.  These educational videos to illustrate how math is used in satellite data analysis. 

Students explore positive feedback effects of changing albedo from melting Arctic sea ice.

Students will make a claim about whether changing albedo contributes to changes in Arctic habitats.

Background on changing albedo values.

Christy Hansen is the project manager on an airborne campaign for Earth science called Operation IceBridge. IceBridge teams are all over the country. We have scientists, instrument managers, we have a data center, we have aircraft offices all over. This project flies up to nine different geophysical instruments installed on the aircraft to collect data on the changing ice sheets, the sea ice and the glaciers. 

This activity is one of a series in the collection, The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change activities.