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Red Vandenberg Air Force Base are about

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20 minutes before the launch of icesat-2

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you might see the white light off in the

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distance that's the Delta 2 rocket it's

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it kind of feels like an idea that we're

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just always going to just mean stay an

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idea but no it's it's real it's sitting

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on top of the rocket you know for me

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it's kind of surreal like you say it's

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been 10 years it's hard to believe it's

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like we're really here this is really

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about to happen

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[Applause]

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[Music]

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[Applause]

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[Music]

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this is dr. Tom Newman over the years

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his work has taken him to some pretty

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remote areas to study changes in the ice

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regions of our planet and his research

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among many others has defined the goals

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of the new NASA satellite the ice cloud

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and land elevation satellite - or ice at

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- the story of ice at - really begins

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with ice at one I said told us all kinds

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of cool things about the Ice Sheet and

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about sea ice that we didn't really know

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to ask that data allowed us to measure

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elevation change of ice sheets in a way

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that we hadn't been able to before and

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showed that all the action on the ice

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sheets the places that we're really

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changing quickly were around the edges

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so when we were thinking about what

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could we do better next time

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we knew that was one key component in

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addition to the edges of the ice sheets

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icesat-2 needed to measure a dimension

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of sea ice that remained elusive its

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thickness to figure out how thick sea

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ice is you can measure the height of ice

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sticking out of the ocean or freeboard

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and compare it to the height of water

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between the sea ice flows called leads

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the problem is sea ice is really dynamic

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and those cracks open and close various

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places in the ice pack throughout the

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day throughout the year and what we need

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to do is have measurements of the ocean

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whenever it's available wherever it

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occurs in the sea ice pack to solve that

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problem I said - is designed with a fast

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pulsing laser instrument to take precise

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near-continuous measurements across its

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three pairs of beams for ten years

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everything about the mission was

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designed to measure rapid changes in the

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most rapidly changing part of the

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cryosphere but it has to get into space

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first but it's a huge huge transition

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going from the ground to in space we've

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spent better part of ten years thousands

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of people have been involved and

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actually seeing the rocket they're on

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the pad with all of that work kind of

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all put together and in one place it's

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it's pretty amazing and then getting up

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in the middle of the night to go watch

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the actual launch it's sort of surreal

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in a way because you've put so much time

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into it for so long and actually seeing

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it over there is like oh you know it's

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it's a big deal

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[Music]

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[Applause]

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totally cool they're wet

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so Atlas has been turned on over the

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course of the first few weeks of the

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mission really culminating for us with

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with the laser so this is our first look

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at sea ice data from I set - and it

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looks fantastic the signal levels look

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great we've got plenty of photons there

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we're capturing ridges we can clearly

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see the ocean all sorts of cool stuff in

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there and this is just our first data

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it's only going to get better from here

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on out the data from icesat-2 is well on

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its way into digging deeper into the

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unknown dimensions of sea ice ice sheets

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and glaciers it will shed light on

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changes in sea level and global weather

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patterns and once again find new things

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about ice we didn't know to ask

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so my heart is definitely raised I don't

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know better you know slight chance the