Image: IceBridge flight over Baffin Island

(Phys.org) —IceBridge closed out the fourth week of its Arctic campaign with a flight over the striking landscape of eastern Greenland's Geikie Peninsula and a survey of a Canadian ice cap before taking two days off over the weekend. Soon the mission will return to Thule to finish up Arctic flights for 2013.

The morning of April 12, 2013 saw the P-3B take off for a flight to the west, across the Davis Strait to Canada's Baffin Island. This island, the largest one in Canada, is home to an ice formation known as the Penny Ice Cap. This mission was a repeat of airborne surveys by the ATM and radar teams flown in 1995, 2000 and 2005, and added new survey lines along ICESat ground tracks. Previous airborne surveys showed the ice cap thinning and glaciers retreating in the area and the April 12 mission aimed at measuring several glaciers in the area to see how much the Penny Ice Cap has melted in recent years.

The image captures ice covered fjord on Baffin Island with Davis Strait in the background.