Snow thickness profiling on Antarctic sea ice with GPR—Rapid and accurate measurements with the potential to upscale needles to a haystack
Snow thickness on sea ice is a largely undersampled parameter yet of importance for the sea ice mass balance and for satellite-based sea ice thickness estimates and thus our general understanding of global ice volume change. Traditional direct thickness measurements with meter sticks can provide acc...
Published in: | Geophysical Research Letters |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
2017
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2451679 https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074202 |
id |
ftngicom:oai:brage.bibsys.no:11250/2451679 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftngicom:oai:brage.bibsys.no:11250/2451679 2023-05-15T14:02:21+02:00 Snow thickness profiling on Antarctic sea ice with GPR—Rapid and accurate measurements with the potential to upscale needles to a haystack Pfaffhuber, Andreas Aspmo Lieser, Jan L. Haas, Christian 2017-08-24T07:26:12Z http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2451679 https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074202 eng eng urn:issn:0094-8276 http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2451679 https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074202 cristin:1487649 44 Geophysical Research Letters Peer reviewed Journal article 2017 ftngicom https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074202 2018-09-20T09:19:49Z Snow thickness on sea ice is a largely undersampled parameter yet of importance for the sea ice mass balance and for satellite-based sea ice thickness estimates and thus our general understanding of global ice volume change. Traditional direct thickness measurements with meter sticks can provide accurate but only spot information, referred to as “needles” due to their pinpoint focus and information, while airborne and satellite remote sensing snow products, referred to as “the haystack,” have large uncertainties due to their scale. We demonstrate the remarkable accuracy and applicability of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) snow thickness measurements by comparing them with in situ meter stick data from two field campaigns to Antarctica in late winter/early spring. The efficiency and millimeter-to-centimeter accuracy of GPR enables practitioners to acquire extensive, semiregional data with the potential to upscale needles to the haystack and to potentially calibrate satellite remote sensing products that we confirm to derive roughly 30% of the in situ thickness. We find the radar wave propagation velocity in snow to be rather constant (± 6%), encouraging regional snow thickness surveys. Snow thinner than 10 cm is under the detection limit with the off-the-shelf GPR setup utilized in our study. publishedVersion Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Sea ice Unknown Antarctic Haystack ENVELOPE(-19.392,-19.392,75.726,75.726) Geophysical Research Letters 44 15 7836 7844 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Unknown |
op_collection_id |
ftngicom |
language |
English |
description |
Snow thickness on sea ice is a largely undersampled parameter yet of importance for the sea ice mass balance and for satellite-based sea ice thickness estimates and thus our general understanding of global ice volume change. Traditional direct thickness measurements with meter sticks can provide accurate but only spot information, referred to as “needles” due to their pinpoint focus and information, while airborne and satellite remote sensing snow products, referred to as “the haystack,” have large uncertainties due to their scale. We demonstrate the remarkable accuracy and applicability of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) snow thickness measurements by comparing them with in situ meter stick data from two field campaigns to Antarctica in late winter/early spring. The efficiency and millimeter-to-centimeter accuracy of GPR enables practitioners to acquire extensive, semiregional data with the potential to upscale needles to the haystack and to potentially calibrate satellite remote sensing products that we confirm to derive roughly 30% of the in situ thickness. We find the radar wave propagation velocity in snow to be rather constant (± 6%), encouraging regional snow thickness surveys. Snow thinner than 10 cm is under the detection limit with the off-the-shelf GPR setup utilized in our study. publishedVersion |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Pfaffhuber, Andreas Aspmo Lieser, Jan L. Haas, Christian |
spellingShingle |
Pfaffhuber, Andreas Aspmo Lieser, Jan L. Haas, Christian Snow thickness profiling on Antarctic sea ice with GPR—Rapid and accurate measurements with the potential to upscale needles to a haystack |
author_facet |
Pfaffhuber, Andreas Aspmo Lieser, Jan L. Haas, Christian |
author_sort |
Pfaffhuber, Andreas Aspmo |
title |
Snow thickness profiling on Antarctic sea ice with GPR—Rapid and accurate measurements with the potential to upscale needles to a haystack |
title_short |
Snow thickness profiling on Antarctic sea ice with GPR—Rapid and accurate measurements with the potential to upscale needles to a haystack |
title_full |
Snow thickness profiling on Antarctic sea ice with GPR—Rapid and accurate measurements with the potential to upscale needles to a haystack |
title_fullStr |
Snow thickness profiling on Antarctic sea ice with GPR—Rapid and accurate measurements with the potential to upscale needles to a haystack |
title_full_unstemmed |
Snow thickness profiling on Antarctic sea ice with GPR—Rapid and accurate measurements with the potential to upscale needles to a haystack |
title_sort |
snow thickness profiling on antarctic sea ice with gpr—rapid and accurate measurements with the potential to upscale needles to a haystack |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2451679 https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074202 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-19.392,-19.392,75.726,75.726) |
geographic |
Antarctic Haystack |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Haystack |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Sea ice |
op_source |
44 Geophysical Research Letters |
op_relation |
urn:issn:0094-8276 http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2451679 https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074202 cristin:1487649 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074202 |
container_title |
Geophysical Research Letters |
container_volume |
44 |
container_issue |
15 |
container_start_page |
7836 |
op_container_end_page |
7844 |
_version_ |
1766272587598397440 |