News & Events
Latest updates from the Remote Sensing Laboratory at the University at Buffalo.
2026
NASA Selects Earth Dynamics Geodetic Explorer (EDGE) Mission
NASA has officially selected the EDGE mission proposal for continued development as part of its Earth System
Explorers (ESE) program.
Dr. Beata Csatho serves as the Land Ice Products Co-Lead; Dr. Sophie Nowicki serves as Co-I for Land Ice Applications, responsible for overseeing
elevation change products over glaciers and ice sheets.
EDGE will be the world’s first global satellite imaging laser altimeter system. The mission is subject to a
confirmation review in 2027, with a launch expected no earlier than 2030.
2025
RS Lab at the 2025 AGU Fall Meeting
RS Lab PhD students Hui Gao and Mohammad Salmani participated and
presented two posters each, focusing on Greenland mass balance and past ice extents at the 2025 American
Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting.
2025
Major Grant Supports Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project (ISMIP7)
The University at Buffalo has received $2.1 million from the Heising-Simons Foundation to
support ISMIP7 (Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project for CMIP7).
Dr. Sophie Nowicki serves as ISMIP7 Co-Chair; Dr. Beata Csatho is a Steering Committee Member and Liaison for the Observational Focus Group, which provides the
satellite-derived datasets needed to calibrate and validate the 37+ international ice sheet models
used to project sea-level rise contributions from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets through 2300.
2024
RS Lab at the 2024 AGU Fall Meeting
Dr. Beata Csatho and RS Lab PhD students Hui Gao and Mohammad
Salmani attended and presented at the 2024 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting,
representing the lab’s latest research in glaciology and remote sensing.
2024
Citizen CATE 2024 — Total Solar Eclipse
RS Lab participated in Citizen CATE 2024, a NASA-funded citizen science project to observe the sun’s corona during the April 8, 2024, total solar eclipse. Our team operated a telescope station as part of a network of 35+ sites across North America, capturing polarized images of the solar corona.
2024
Space Lasers Have Unearthed Plethora of Climate Data Over the Years
A new paper co-authored by Dr. Beata Csatho highlights the 20-year history of ICESat and ICESat-2, detailing
how space lasers have transformed our understanding of Earth’s polar regions and climate change.
2023
Some Greenland Glaciers Might Show More Stability Than Previously Thought
Research from the RS Lab suggests that certain marine-terminating glaciers in northern Greenland may be more
stable than prior models indicated, providing critical new insights into future sea-level rise projections.
2018
NASA Launches ICESat-2
NASA’s Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) launched on September 15, 2018. Equipped with the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS), ICESat-2 measures the height of Earth’s ice sheets, glaciers, sea ice, forests, and more with unprecedented precision. RS Lab researchers contribute to the mission’s science team.
Blog
NASA ICESat-2 Official Blog
Follow the latest updates, stories, and data highlights from the ICESat-2 mission on the official NASA
Science blog. Learn how space lasers are measuring ice thickness and tracking global climate change.