How Sea Ice is Made with Dr. Melinda Webster

In this specific lesson, Dr. Melinda Webster explains sea ice formation. You'll learn about its role in driving ocean circulation, different shapes the ice can take on, and what affects sea ice growth vs. reduction.

This video is part of a collection called “Frozen in the Ice: Exploring the Arctic,” offered through the online course platform Coursera, about the extraordinary MOSAiC Arctic research mission that has frozen an icebreaker into the Arctic Ocean, where it will drift for 13 months (mosaic-expedition.org).

March 17, 2020

Video Theme

Science Content Video 

Audience

Educators

K-12 Students

College Students

Lifelong Learners

Program Reference

Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC)

About the Presenter Header

About the Presenter

Dr. Melinda Webster joined the Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in January 2017 as a Research Physical Scientist. Prior to joining the lab, Dr. Webster received her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Washington, all with a theme on Arctic sea ice. Her work has covered a breadth of sea ice topics including small-scale processes such as melt pond evolution, to large-scale trends such as snow on Arctic sea ice. In her current role, Dr. Webster is investigating the geophysical properties, processes, and trends of sea ice through the synthesis of remote sensing, in situ, and model data.

Additional Resources

Visit this page to access the “Frozen in the Ice: Exploring the Arctic” Coursera.

In this course, you’ll hear directly from more than three dozen MOSAiC scientists and Arctic experts as they summarize the core of their research, what types of data they collect during MOSAiC on the ice, under the sea, and in the air and describe why this expedition is so key for increasing our understanding of the Arctic and global climate systems.