Ice, ice baby! Sea ice is seen outside in this view from our P-3 research aircraft's bubble windows during a flight conducted on April 16, 2018, to gather data as part of our Operation IceBridge mission. Using a fleet of research aircraft, Operation IceBridge monitors Earth's polar ice to better understand annual changes in the thickness of sea ice, glaciers and ice sheets. IceBridge collects data to bridge the gap between ICESat and the forthcoming ICESat-2 satellites. This mission is part of a focus on Earth's frozen regions at a time when decades of observations from the ground, air and space have revealed signs of change in Earth's ice sheets, sea ice, glaciers, snow cover and permafrost. Collectively, scientists call these frozen regions of our planet the "cryosphere." Ongoing changes with the cryosphere, while often occurring in remote regions, have impacts on people all around the world: sea level rise affects coastlines globally, more than a billion people rely on water from ...