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What we're looking at is a map of the topography of the Arctic Ocean. How does the ocean surface
change in height from one region to the other? And what were looking at in terms of the Western
Arctic is an area of higher sea surface height and in the eastern Arctic an area of lower
sea surface height. These two regions come together to transport water from one part
of the Arctic to the other. As the currents move they also are carrying sea ice floes
from one region of the Arctic to another and what were interested in is to look at how
do these currents in the mean how do they move, transport water from the Pacific region
to the Atlantic region. And then on seasonal time scales how do they change from one month
to the next or from one year to the next? And how does this contribute, or how does
it impact sea level rise in the region? So the Arctic Ocean is covered in a layer of
sea ice which actually has cracks in it. So basically small sea ice floes move around
the Arctic Ocean together but in between them there are areas of open water which we call
leads. And what we do with the satellite data is we measure the surface of the ocean in
these leads. So over time we use satellite laser altimetry data and satellite radar altimetry
data to monitor the ocean height in these cracks in the sea ice. And over a period of
about five and a half years we get enough data to create a map of the entire Arctic
Ocean on a basin scale. This is really interesting data. For the first time ever we've been able
to use satellite only data to look at circulation in the Arctic Ocean, to look at where the
currents are moving from one part of the Arctic to another. The great thing about this is
that we can now monitor the Arctic continuously using new satellite data as it comes in, we
can continue to map changes in the Arctic Ocean from weeks to months to seasons and
then from year to year. The Arctic Ocean is actually quite an interesting region. The
sea surface height there actually slopes from one region to another. So in the western Arctic
near the coast of Canada we have a high, and in the eastern Arctic near the coast of Norway
and Greenland we have a low. The Arctic is so remote we dont really know a lot about
it and so basically the new data is providing a real insight into an area that we don't
know a lot about.