NASA Media Briefing to Preview Major Antarctic Research Campaign

WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA will hold a media
teleconference at 11:30 a.m. EDT on Thursday, Oct. 8, to preview the agency's
largest airborne research effort ever to study Antarctic ice sheets, ice
shelves and sea ice.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO )

The flights are part of NASA's Operation Ice Bridge, a six-year airborne
campaign to each of Earth's polar regions that will extend and expand NASA's
multi-year record of space-based observations of ice conditions. Advancing
scientific understanding of the behavior of polar ice is needed to improve
predictions of future sea-level rise brought on by global warming.

The Antarctic flights are set to begin Oct. 15 from Punta Arenas, Chile, and
will map regions of the Antarctic Peninsula and West Antarctica that are
changing most rapidly. NASA's DC-8 flying laboratory will carry a suite of
instruments to measure the surface of the ice, probe beneath the surface to
the bedrock below, and measure sea ice in the Weddell and Amundsen seas.

The teleconference participants are:
- Seelye Martin, Operation Ice Bridge chief scientist at the University of
Washington in Seattle
- William Krabill, physical scientist at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in
Virginia
- Thorsten Markus, cryospheric sciences branch head at NASA's Goddard Space
Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
- Robin Bell, geophysicist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia
University in Palisades, N.Y.

To participate in the teleconference, reporters must contact Sonja Alexander
at sonja.r.alexander@nasa.gov for dial-in instructions. Supporting material
for the teleconference will be available online on Oct. 8 at 11 a.m. at:

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/ice_bridge/media.html

Audio of the teleconference will be streamed live on NASA's Web site at:

http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio

SOURCE NASA

Steve Cole of NASA Headquarters, Washington, +1-202-358-0918,
stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov