NERC Data Catalogue Service
Processed airborne radio-echo sounding data for the Thwaites Glacier 2019 survey, West Antarctica (2019/2020)
As part of the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC) ~4432 km of new radar depth sounding data was acquired over the Thwaites Glacier catchment by the British Antarctic Survey. Data was collected using the PASIN-2 polametric radar system, fitted on the BAS aerogeophysical equipped survey aircraft "VP-FBL". The survey operated from Lower Thwaites Glacier camp, and focused on collecting data in regions of ice >1.5 km thick between 70 and 180 km from the grounding line. Additional profiles from the coast to the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) divide and over the eastern shear margin were also flown. Ice thicknesses between 418 and 3744 m were measured, with a minimum bed elevation of -2282 m imaged.
Our Twin Otter aircraft was equipped with dual-frequency carrier-phase GPS for navigation, radar altimeter for surface mapping, wing-tip magnetometers, an iMAR strapdown gravity system, and a new ice-sounding radar system (PASIN-2).
We present here the full radar dataset consisting of the deep-sounding chirp and shallow-sounding pulse-acquired data in their processed form, as well as the navigational information of each trace, the surface and bed elevation picks, ice thickness, and calculated absolute surface and bed elevations. This dataset comes primarily in the form of NetCDF and georeferenced SEGY files. To interactively engage with this newly-published dataset, we also created segmented quicklook PDF files of the radar data.
Simple
- Alternate title
- Polar Data Centre (PDC) record GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/01322
- Date (Publication)
- 2021-11-30
- Identifier
- http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/dms/metadata.php?id= / GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/01322
- Maintenance and update frequency
- unknown Unknown
- Keywords
-
- NDGO0001
- NERC OAI Harvesting
-
- NERC_DDC
- GCMD Parameter Valids
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- EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Glaciers/Ice Sheets
- EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Snow/Ice > Ice Depth/Thickness
- EARTH SCIENCE > Hydrosphere > Glaciers/Ice Sheets > Glacier Thickness/Ice Sheet Thickness
- BAS Free-text keywords
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- Antarctica
- Geophysics
- ITGC
- Radar
- Thwaites Glacier
- aerogeophysics
- ice thickness
- surface elevation
- Use limitation
-
This data is covered by a UK Open Government Licence (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/) Further by downloading this data the user acknowledges that they agree with the NERC data policy (http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/sites/data/policy.asp), and the following conditions:
1. To cite the data in any publication as follows:
DATA REFERENCE
Jordan, T., & Robinson, C. (2021). Processed airborne radio-echo sounding data for the Thwaites Glacier 2019 survey, West Antarctica (2019/2020) (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/E7ABA676-1FDC-4C9A-B125-1EBE6124E5DC
2. The user recognizes the limitations of data. Use of the data is at the users'' own risk, and there is no warranty as to the quality or accuracy of any data, or the fitness of the data for your intended use. The data are not necessarily fully quality assured and cannot be expected to be free from measurement uncertainty, systematic biases, or errors of interpretation or analysis, and may include inaccuracies in error margins quoted with the data.
- Access constraints
- otherRestrictions Other restrictions
- Other constraints
-
This data is covered by a UK Open Government Licence (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/) Further by downloading this data the user acknowledges that they agree with the NERC data policy (http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/sites/data/policy.asp), and the following conditions:
1. To cite the data in any publication as follows:
DATA REFERENCE
Jordan, T., & Robinson, C. (2021). Processed airborne radio-echo sounding data for the Thwaites Glacier 2019 survey, West Antarctica (2019/2020) (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/E7ABA676-1FDC-4C9A-B125-1EBE6124E5DC
2. The user recognizes the limitations of data. Use of the data is at the users'' own risk, and there is no warranty as to the quality or accuracy of any data, or the fitness of the data for your intended use. The data are not necessarily fully quality assured and cannot be expected to be free from measurement uncertainty, systematic biases, or errors of interpretation or analysis, and may include inaccuracies in error margins quoted with the data.
- Metadata language
- EnglishEnglish
- Topic category
-
- Geoscientific information
))
- Begin date
- 2019-12-24
- End date
- 2019-12-29
- Reference system identifier
- OGP / urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::4326
- Distribution format
-
- OnLine resource
- https://thwaitesglacier.org/
- Hierarchy level
- dataset Dataset
Domain consistency
- Measure identification
- INSPIRE / Conformity_001
Conformance result
- Date
- Explanation
- See the referenced specification
- Pass
- No
- Statement
-
Analysis of 52 crossover points within the survey area indicates a standard deviation for the bed elevation of ~22m, which is in-line with the values suggested for previous radar surveys. Lidar derived surface elevation has a crossover error of ~10 m. The relatively high value is attributed to use of Lidar nadir range to ground un-corrected for aircraft roll, pitch and yaw.
Line spacing is on the order of 15 km (designed to inter-leave with previous surveys). Along line data spacing is ~24 m.
- File identifier
- GB_NERC_BAS_PDC_01322 XML
- Metadata language
- EnglishEnglish
- Hierarchy level
- dataset Dataset
- Date stamp
- 2021-11-30
- Metadata standard name
- NERC profile of ISO19115:2003
- Metadata standard version
- 1.0
Overviews
Spatial extent
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