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I can’t really name anyone that has so much integrity as she does to the things she’s accomplishing. It’s pretty amazing

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to the things she’s accomplishing. It’s pretty amazing

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Having Claire as a role model, just a strong woman in science

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and just so smart and so kind. It’s just a huge confidence booster

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it just, hey I could do that too. That’s possible, that’s successful, that’s what I want to do.

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I would characterize her as a pioneer in the field.

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The amount and quality of the work she’s put out, is second to none.

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I know people who have a lot of tenacity, I know people who have integrity.

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But it’s rare that people have both together in that combination that Claire does.

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Every morning, Dr. Claire Parkinson gets up before sunrise and runs two miles to work.

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She hasn’t missed a day in nearly forty years.

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NASA Explorers

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Cryosphere

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Ice Odyssey

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Episode Three

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To know the evolution of sea ice and how we observe it from space, is to know Claire.

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This year, she celebrating forty years at NASA.

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When I arrived at Goddard, which was in July 1978, it was an incredibly exciting period here.

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Satellites were pretty new, but a lot of data had been collected.

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NASA scientists were inundated with information and Claire was in a cohort looking at sea ice,

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trying to make sense of a jumble of very raw, very new data.

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It was around that time, that Claire and her team, at the time led by Dr. Jay Zwally

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created the principle sea ice record that we use today.

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How does something like that record help you do your job?

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Oh, that record is fundamental to understanding sea ice.

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So without it, we wouldn’t know how rapidly it's changing.

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You may not realize it, but Claire’s work studying the changing extent

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of the ice caps deeply affected our understanding of climate change and relatedly,

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our understanding of how climate change affects life on Earth.

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One of the clearest signals for climate change that resonates with people

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has been the shrinking of this polar ice cap in the summer

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that we’re able to see because of Claire’s work.

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After we had a record that was about fifteen to twenty years long,

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we started noticing that the extent of sea ice in the Arctic was getting smaller over time.

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Sea ice is formed on the surface of the ocean

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and therefore is made from sea water.

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The biggest concentration is in the Arctic.

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And it’s also where the biggest loss in sea ice is occurring.

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Every year NASA reports on the sea ice minimum and maximum extents.

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As expected, the data is concerning.

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By now, not only has this trend toward lesser ice continued,

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but it’s even accelerated so that now the decreases are greater than what they had been.

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These trends are deeply troubling, but one thing’s for sure:

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our awareness of shrinking sea ice extent due to climate change was propelled

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faster and further after Claire Parkinson arrived at NASA.

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I mean, she takes her job seriously and the health and welfare of those instruments in space.

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Yup, she’s on it. You know it’s one of the things you don’t worry about,

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because Claire’s in the loop on these things. It’s gonna be fine.

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In science, we stand on the shoulders of giants,

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on the shoulders of those who explored before us.

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But then some among us are giants.

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On the next episode of Cryosphere

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For a scientist, its incredibly exciting to be studying these

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glaciers and ice sheets right now because

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they're doing something that hasn't happened in thousands of years.