Projects

The ICELINK project aims to enhance our understanding of how North Atlantic ice sheets and glaciers respond to climate change, and their impact on local communities and ecosystems. By integrating Earth Observation data, in-situ observations, and ice-flow and climate models, ICELINK uses Icelandic glaciers as a research laboratory to study the effect of increased temperatures on the Greenland ice sheet. This research will improve our knowledge of the processes governing the evolution of ice sheet and glaciers in a warming world.

Contact: Louise Sandberg Sørensen, slss@dtu.dk

DTU Space plays a central role in the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) by developing and operating the Greenland Surface Elevation Change (SEC) Essential Climate Variable. Building on pioneering work in ESA’s Climate Change Initiative, DTU Space transformed research-grade altimetry into an operational service that delivers reliable, continuously updated records of ice sheet elevation change. These data, openly available through the Copernicus Climate Data Store, are critical for monitoring Greenland’s contribution to sea level rise, informing climate assessments such as those of the IPCC, and supporting policy and adaptation strategies worldwide.

Contact: Sebastian Simonsen, ssim@dtu.dk

Arctic Extremes (ARCTEX) aims to advance the current state of knowledge on how extreme events in the Arctic impact the interactions between the atmosphere, ocean, sea ice and land ice. The project will investigate and evaluate these processes and extreme events through detailed studies focusing on three of the most important marine-affected glaciers and ice caps in the rapidly changing Atlantic sector of the Arctic Ocean, which will act as the project's science cases.

Contact: Louise S. Sørensen, slss@dtu.dk

Sentinel-3 Topography mission Assessment through Reference Techniques Follow-On (St3TART-FO) aims to provide an operational framework for fiducial reference measurements (FRM) to support validation activities for Sentinel-3 over inland waters, land ice, and sea ice, where we are the thematic lead for sea ice.

Contact: Henriette Skourup, hsko@dtu.dk

The overall aim of 4DGreenland is to advance the current state of knowledge on the hydrology of the Greenland Ice Sheet, by capitalising on the latest advances in Earth Observation data. In 4DGreenland we will map and quantify both meltwater- , subglacial- and supra-glacial processes, as well as performing an integrated assessment of Greenland’s hydrology based on the results.

Contact: Louise S. Sørensen, slss@dtu.dk

The DTC Ice Sheets project is part of the European Space Agency’s efforts to support the EU’s Destination Earth (DestinE) initiative. It develops a high-resolution, data-driven digital twin of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets by integrating satellite Earth observation (EO), numerical modelling, and AI. This digital twin enables dynamic simulation, monitoring, and prediction of ice sheet changes in near real time, promoting the use of EO in Digital Twin Component (DTC) development. 

Contact: Sebastian B. Simonsen, ssim@dtu.dk

CRISTAL In-Flight Level-2 Products Validation Plan (CRISTAL IN-PROVA) will provide a roadmap for the calibration and validation of the Copernicus Polar Ice and Snow Topography Altimeter (CRISTAL) Level-2 products covering cryosphere (sea ice & icebergs, land ice) and the inland water domains. It will provide tools to preliminarily assess the effectiveness of proposed validation methods and measurements, and evaluate the calibration and validation results, taking into account mission requirements. 

Contact: Henriette Skourup (sea ice & icebergs), hsko@dtu.dk, or Sebastian B. Simonsen (land ice), ssim@dtu.dk

In the Sentinel-3 Mission Performance Cluster (S3 MPC), we work with Altimetry Calibration and Validation activities. We support the Sentinel-3 mission by assessing and improving the accuracy of radar altimetry data. As leaders for the Land Ice product, we are responsible for ensuring high-quality, stable measurements through ongoing instrument monitoring, calibration, and validation throughout the mission lifetime.

Contact: Stine K. Rose, stine@dtu.dk, or Sebastian B. Simonsen, ssim@dtu.dk

Contact: Henriette Skourup, hsko@dtu.dk

The CCI Greenland Ice Sheet Project is part of the European Space Agency’s Climate Change Initiative (CCI), focused on monitoring and understanding changes in the Greenland Ice Sheet. This initiative uses satellite data to track key climate variables such as ice sheet elevation change, surface velocity, and mass balance. By generating high-quality essential climate variables of the ice sheet from satellite data, the project helps improve our understanding of how Greenland’s ice sheet is responding to climate change and contributes to global sea level rise.

Contact: Louise S. Sørensen, slss@dtu.dk

Funded under ESA’s Sentinel User Preparedness Foundational Integrated Experiments (SUPFIX) POLAR Call, the Copernicus Expansion Missions Sea Ice Experiment (CEMSIE) project targets synergistic use of the upcoming Copernicus Expansion Missions (CEMs) – CIMR, CRISTAL, and ROSE-L – along current Sentinel missions to enhance the retrieval of critical sea ice variables, including snow depth, sea ice thickness, and sea ice concentration, focusing especially on first-year ice. In particular, an extensive field campaign in Cambridge Bay, NU, Canada, is supported by our group at DTU through the coordination and execution of the airborne CRISTALair component.

Contact: Henriette Skourup, hsko@dtu.dk and Renée M. Fredensborg Hansen, rmfha@dtu.dk

Changes in the Arctic Ocean’s freshwater are critical yet poorly constrained climate components that disrupt global ocean circulation with the risk of profound climatic consequences. ARCFRESH seeks to deepen understanding of Arctic freshwater fluxes and budgets using Earth Observation (EO) data from seven CCI Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) — River Discharge, Snow, Ice Sheets, Glaciers, Sea Level, Sea Ice, and Sea Surface Salinity—plus the Sea Level Budget X-ECV.

Contact: Louise S. Sørensen, slss@dtu.dk

In this project, we support modelling multidimensional causes and impacts of extreme fires in the climate system through X-ECV analysis. The surface elevation change is acknowledged as an ECV because it provides empirical evidence for comprehending and forecasting climate evolution. We will look for a correlation between enhanced ice sheet melt extent and extreme forest fires.

Contact: Stine K. Rose, stine@dtu.dk, or Louise S. Sørensen, slss@dtu.dk

CRISTALair is the airborne demonstrator for ESA’s upcoming CRISTAL satellite mission, designed to validate and mature dual-frequency (Ku- and Ka-band) interferometric radar altimetry for monitoring snow and ice. Building on the ASIRAS heritage (the airborne validation instrument for CryoSat), CRISTALair integrates advanced instrumentation, including airborne laser scanning, precise positioning, and auxiliary sensors, to rigorously test algorithms and performance requirements. A functional test campaign will take place in autumn 2025, with DTU Space as the science lead on both land ice and sea ice, ensuring robust validation of CRISTALair capabilities. This work secures the foundations for future climate-quality datasets that will extend Europe’s ability to monitor ice sheet surface elevation change, sea ice thickness, and their contributions to global sea level rise.

Contact: Henriette Skourup, hsko@dtu.dk

The St3TART project aimed at preparing a roadmap and providing a preliminary proof of concept for the provision of Fiducial Reference Measurements (FRM) in support of the validation activities of the Sentinel-3 (S3) radar altimeter over land surfaces of interest, i.e. inland water bodies (lakes, reservoirs, rivers including estuarian areas), as well as sea ice and land ice areas (ice caps, mountain glaciers). This project has been followed by St3TART-FO.

Contact: Henriette Skourup, hsko@dtu.dk

A subglacial lake is a lake located beneath a glacier or ice sheet.  It is difficult to study and monitor subglacial lakes due to their location, and therefore little is known about the hydrological processes that affect them. The vast majority of subglacial lakes in Greenland appear to be stable over time, but a handful of them are dynamic and drain and refill periodically. These active lakes can be identified by studying the topography of the ice, as draining the lake can create a collapse basin in the ice surface that refills as the subglacial lake refills. In this project, we will use new processing methods applied to different types of satellite data to map the drainage and recharge of active subglacial lakes in Greenland, at high temporal and spatial resolution, to investigate which hydrological processes drive their dynamics. In this way, we will also be able to improve our current and limited knowledge of the basal melting in Greenland.

This project serves as the foundation for a PhD project.

Contact: Mikkel Aaby Kruse, maakr@dtu.dk, or Louise S. Sørensen, slss@dtu.dk

The focus of the Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet (PROMICE) is to evaluate the mass loss of the Greenland Ice Sheet. This loss is primarily driven by surface melt and increased iceberg production due to accelerated ice flow. PROMICE monitors both these processes and maintains a network of weather stations providing ground truth data for calibrating mass budget models. We contribute by creating annual Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) from Earth Observation data to improve the assessment of solid ice discharge and its changes over time, thereby improving assessments of the total mass balance of the ice sheet.

Contact: Mai Winstrup, maiwin@dtu.dk

Funded through the Marine Environmental Observation, Prediction and Response Network (MEOPAR) Postdoctoral Fellowship Award 2025, the project "Scalable Network of Observations With Multi-sensor and Multi-frequency Altimetry for Snow Studies (SNOWMASS)" will explore multi-scale and multi-frequency altimetry over snow-covered sea ice using reference measurements (ground and airborne) and satellite measurements, informed by scattering models, aimed at consolidating the radar backscattering signals across the scales. The project is conducted between the University of Calgary and the Technical University of Denmark.

Contact: Renée M. Fredensborg Hansen, rmfha@dtu.dk