Reaping the fruits of a continuous characterization of sea ice and snow conditions throughout the season, we spent about three weeks on the ice to correlate the formation of melt ponds and the change in ice albedo with ice and snow properties. Apart from Chris Petrich and Chris Polashenski, Hajo Eicken, Don Perovich, Matt Druckenmiller, Nels Peterson, Daniel Pringle, and Matthew Sturm did a variety of measurements. Martin Stuefer flew his plane with some of our custom equipment, and we got a great overview of the ice during melt. Here is an aerial shot of Hajo and Nels walking across melt ponds:
