Michelle Koutnik, of the University of Copenhagen's Center for Ice and Climate, prepares a core of Antarctic ice to be wrapped and put into core tubes for transport back to labs at Brigham Young University in Utah. But first, Koutnik measure the core's length, diameter and weight. An international team of researchers in West Antarctica, led by NASA's Lora Koenig, collected snow accumulation information during the 2010-2011 Antarctic field season. A key component of understanding the continent's mass balance, the data were collected from snow pits, ice cores and radar, all of which will be tied back to the large-scale observations from satellites. The ground-based work is expected to boost the utility of the satellite record. For more about the project, see the article at The Antarctic Sun website: http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/contenthandler.cfm?id=2648.