An unprecedented NASA campaign to monitor Arctic sea ice loss is in full swing this month. The Arctic Radiation Ice-Bridge Sea and Ice Experiment (ARISE) started on August 28 and runs through October 1, the peak time frame of the Artic summer ice melt.

The campaign marks the first airborne mission over the Arctic for NASA, which will measure cloud and ice cover, as well as incoming and outgoing solar radiation. The amount of sea ice melt is important to the Arctic region, as a deteriorating ice pack can actually foment further warming in the region due to the Albedo Effect.

The Albedo Effect refers to the amount of light reflected from the Earth’s surface. Darker regions of the globe, such as the ocean readily absorb solar radiation, warming the region; alternatively lighter areas such as dense cloud cover and the ice caps reflect incoming light, which can have a cooling effect.

“A wild card in what’s happening in the Arctic is clouds and how changes in clouds, due to changing sea-ice conditions, enhance or offset warming,” said Bill Smith, ARISE principal investigator at NASA’s Langley Research Center, in a statement.

Over the past few years, the Arctic summer ice loss has exceeded the normally observed melt rate. Scientists believe that the exposure of the surrounding ocean has subsequently lead to the compounded melt rates slowly eating away the ice pack that comprises the North Pole.

“The clouds and surface conditions over the Arctic as we observe them from satellites are very complex,” Smith said. “We need more information to understand how to better interpret the satellite measurements, and an aircraft can help with that.”

The ARISE mission aims to deduce how the ice melt intertwines with cloud formation in the Arctic. Environmental factors, such as whether clouds form over open sea, land ice, or sea ice, may influence the types of clouds generated, which could have adverse impacts on the melt: low level clouds typically reflect more light and encourage cooling, whereas high level cloud cover not only reflects less, but also trap higher amounts of greenhouse gases.

“It’s a complex business, but it depends on a lot of things we can, in fact, measure,” said Hal Maring, program manager for radiation sciences in the Earth Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, in a statement.