Tomographic observation and bedmapping of glaciers in western Greenland with IceBridge sounding radar

We produced the high resolution bedmaps of several glaciers in western Greenland from IceBridge Mission sounding radar data using tomographic sounding technique. The bedmaps cover 3 regions: Russell glaciers, Umanaq glaciers and Jakobshavn glaciers of western Greenland. The covered areas is about 20...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Wu, Xiaoqing, Paden, John, Jezek, Ken, Rignot, Eric, Gim, Young
Format: Report
Language:English
Published: Pasadena, CA : Jet Propulsion Laboratory, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2013 2014
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/2014/44242
Description
Summary:We produced the high resolution bedmaps of several glaciers in western Greenland from IceBridge Mission sounding radar data using tomographic sounding technique. The bedmaps cover 3 regions: Russell glaciers, Umanaq glaciers and Jakobshavn glaciers of western Greenland. The covered areas is about 20x40 km² for Russell glaciers and 300x100 km2, and 100x80 km² for Jakobshavn glaciers. The ground resolution is 50 meters and the average ice thickness accuracy is 10 to 20 meters. There are some void areas within the swath of the tracks in the bedmaps where the ice thickness is not known. Tomographic observations of these void areas indicate that the surface and shallow sub-surface pockets, likely filled with water, are highly reflective and greatly weaken the radar signal and reduce the energy reaching and reflected from the ice sheet bottom. NASA/JPL