Quad-polarimetric pRES Data Collected at the Ekström Ice Shelf Grounding Zone, East Antarctica

• Main Authors: Ershadi, M Reza, Drews, Reinhard, Hawkins, Jonathan, Elliott, Joshua, Lines, Austin P, Koch, Inka, Eisen, Olaf
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2024
• Subjects: Binary Object; Binary Object (File Size); Binary Object (MD5 Hash); DATE/TIME; Ekstrom_Ice_Shelf_2022_pRES; LATITUDE; Local Time; LONGITUDE; Phase-sensitive radio echo sounder; pRES; Profile ID; Antarctic; The Antarctic; East Antarctica; Neumayer; Ekström Ice Shelf; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Shelf; Journal of Glaciology
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.965555; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.965555

This dataset is supplementary material for the manuscript "Autonomous Rover Enables Radar Profiling of Ice-Fabric Properties in Antarctica" submitted to TGRS-IEEE journal (under review). The dataset comprises phase-sensitive radio echo sounder (pRES) radar data collected in quad-polarimetric Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) mode during the Antarctic field season 2021-22 at the grounding zone of Ekström Ice Shelf in East Antarctica and was gathered with the logistical support of the Neumayer III station (Wesche et al., 2016). The dataset consists of several profiles: 1. Profile 1: 18 km, along-flow across grounding zone; 5 km were collected with 20 m shot spacing (QP_AlongFlow_20mSpacing) and 13 km with 100 m shot spacing (QP_AlongFlow_100mSpacing). 2. Profile 2: 5 km across-flow measurement at the grounding zone with 100 m spacings (QP_AcrossFlow_100mSpacing). 3. Profile 3: 0.7 km west of Neumayer III station with 1.5 m shot spacings (Neumayer_SAR_1.5mSpacing). 4. Two datasets of continuous measurements were obtained in a single burst while the rover was in motion (ContinuousQP). The data were collected to detect the change of ice fabric anisotropy in the grounding zone, where the ice transitions from grounded to floating. Additionally, the collection of quad-polarimetric MIMO pRES data was a proof of concept for autonomous data acquisition. The radar system was towed by an autonomous ice rover to predefined coordinates, triggering the radar. The antenna setup used a non-standard [Transmitter (VH) - (HV) Receiver] combination for quad-polarimetric (QP) data acquisition, requiring special consideration during processing, as detailed in the main paper (under review - TGRS IEEE) and RezaErshadi/pRES_InTheField_101 GitHub repository (doi:10.5281/zenodo.10064672). For the SAR profile the [Transmitter (HH) - (HH) Receiver] antenna setup was used. The pRES data were collected in standard mode using a 1-s chirp (Nicholls et al., 2015) in start-stop mode unless otherwise specified.