---
title: Cold Coverage
date: 2026-01-15T11:00:00-05:00
author: University of Maryland
canonical_url: "https://terp.umd.edu/cold-coverage"
section: Articles
---
# Cold Coverage

*January 15, 2026* — by [Karen Shih ’09](/authors/karen-shih-09)


- *Photo by NASA/Rose Dominguez*

> Scientist Examines Sea Ice Via Satellite, Plane and Snowmobile

*Faculty QA 1920x1080 — The frozen Arctic Ocean, captured via aircraft, shows newer ice up top and older sea ice, topped with snow, at the bottom.*

**THE BEST SNACK TO BRING** on an Arctic mission, Associate Professor Sinead Farrell declares, is chocolate. A banana or sandwich will be as chewable as a backyard paver after a few miles on a snowmobile. That bar, however, will melt right in your mouth, even if it’s 5 degrees Fahrenheit outside.


*Sinead Farrell headshot*


### Why does the Earth need sea ice?


It regulates the global temperature and helps keep the planet cool, which is what we all need to survive. If less of the Arctic Ocean is insulated with ice, this allows more heat from the sun to be absorbed by the ocean each summer, which melts more sea ice, exposing more of the ocean and so on.

It’s also important for biodiversity. The marine food web depends on it, everything from birds to seals to orca. People also use it for transportation between villages and hunting.


### Why do we need to know how it fluctuates?


Many livelihoods depend on knowledge of conditions. Summer is the busiest time in the Arctic for tourists, wildlife and industry. For example, the Bering Sea is the crab and lobster fishery capital of the world, and the shipping trade in the polar regions is growing rapidly.


### How do you survey by plane?


The majority of my field research has been on NASA aircraft, over places like Greenland and Alaska. I’ve also flown from southern Chile over Antarctica and back. We use lots of instruments to take infrared, visible and radar measurements to get a much more complete picture of the total thickness of the snow and ice. From a satellite image, taken from 600 kilometers away (roughly the distance from D.C. to Boston), there’s no context: Is this long ice ridge 1 foot tall? Five feet tall? We’re using new techniques to measure the ice from space to get a handle on the volume of ice not just the area; if you lose area but thicken the ice so it’s more dense, that could be harder to melt. But if there’s less area and it’s thinner, it will melt quicker.

Over the 14-hour flight, we crossed multiple time zones, so the sun set again and again as we crossed time zones. It was really fascinating!


### What is it like to step onto the ice?


It’s truly magical, so stark, blue and white. It’s a completely quiet environment—so quiet it allows you to hear the ice cracking beneath your feet. It’s sensory deprivation, almost.

The conditions are quite hazardous, even in the summer. The cold weather wreaks havoc with our normal experimental approach, from instruments not working because batteries are dead to your pen freezing, so I bring mechanical pencils.


### Why work with Indigenous communities?


*Researcher measures depth of water on sea ice — Farrell measures the depth of meltwater accumulating on top of the sea ice in Utqiagvik, Alaska. (Photo by Jacqueline Richter-Menge, CRREL)*




**Issue:** [Winter 2026](https://terp.umd.edu/editions/winter-2026)


**Types:** [Explorations](https://terp.umd.edu/category/explorations)


**Tags:** [Faculty Q&A](https://terp.umd.edu/tags/faculty-q-a)