September 5, 2019

Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) is a NASA Earth Venture Suborbital (EVS-2) mission that aims to improve estimates of sea level rise by addressing the question: To what extent are the oceans melting Greenland’s ice from below? OMG observes changing water temperatures on the continental shelf surrounding Greenland, and how marine glaciers react to the presence of warm, salty Atlantic Water. The complicated geometry of the sea floor steers currents on the shelf and often determines whether Atlantic Water can reach into the long narrow fjords and interact with the coastal glaciers. Because knowledge of these pathways is a critical component of understanding the interaction between the oceans and ice sheet, OMG facilitates improved measurements of the shape and depth of the sea floor in key regions.

OMG uses airborne, in situ, and ship-based observations to provide a revolutionary dataset for understanding ocean/ice interactions to improve estimates of global sea level rise. Please see the OMG website and PO.DAAC’s OMG mission webpage for more information on the OMG mission.

OMG mission datasets are archived and distributed by the PO.DAAC. At this time, the PO.DAAC is pleased to announce the public release of the Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) Airborne eXpendable Conductivity Temperature Depth (AXCTD) Version 1 dataset. The dataset is described and discoverable via the PO.DAAC dataset information page. The dataset information pages also provide access to the technical documentation and guidance on how to cite the data.

Figure 1. The left shows an AXCTD being deployed from a plane. The right shows the locations of AXCTD drops for a single field campaign around Greenland.