An upcoming NASA mission will provide an unprecedented look at ice clouds at high altitudes in Earth's atmosphere.
NASA's Polarized Submillimeter Ice-cloud Radiometer (PolSIR) is an instrument designed to study ice clouds that form high above tropical and subtropical regions of the Earth. A pair these relatively low-cost sensors will be mounted on two small satellites and launched into low Earth orbit, where they will collect data on how ice clouds change over the course of a day. The data will help scientists better understand both how these ice clouds are responding to climate change and how they might influence our climate in the future.
