Bi-Polar Photographer Stuart Klipper sent me this NPR story about Ice Bridge, NASA’s new polar imaging project, with planes now taking the place of a dying satellite (Stuart would like to be taking photographs from the flight deck of those planes). Listen to NPR: NASA Launches Mission To Track Polar Ice By Plane (by Jon Hamilton)

The article was fascinating to me for another reason:  the scientist quoted in the story is the same Thomas P. Wagner who was such a terrific liaison for me while I was in Antarctica!  At that time, he was working for the National Science Foundation (Earth Sciences division) — but it seems he has since made the jump to NASA!  Wow.  There were NASA scientists sharing our lab at McMurdo that season, working on core-sampling equipment. Perhaps he was being recruited?  Great guy — wonderful to work with. Here’s a NASA video featuring Wagner:

“NASA climate scientist Tom Wagner provides a look at the state of Arctic sea ice in 2009 and discusses NASA’s role in monitoring the cryosphere.”

Wagner and I, along with the TAMDEF (TransAntarctic Mountains Deformation) researchers, flew down to reposition a GPS device on Deverall Island, the southern-most (icebound) island in Antarctica. Here is a panoramic photo taken by a researcher at Deverall, which includes one of their GPS units, if you scroll all the way to the right edge of the image. And here is are my own photos from that trip: The Scientific Method: Deverall Island