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 under-sampled 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 a...
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Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074202 http://ecite.utas.edu.au/118752 |
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ftunivtasecite:oai:ecite.utas.edu.au:118752 2023-05-15T13:42:40+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, AA Lieser, JL Haas, C 2017 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074202 http://ecite.utas.edu.au/118752 en eng Amer Geophysical Union http://ecite.utas.edu.au/118752/1/118752.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074202 Pfaffhuber, AA and Lieser, JL and Haas, C, Snow thickness profiling on Antarctic sea-ice with GPR - rapid and accurate measurements with the potential to upscale needles to a haystack, Geophysical Research Letters, 44, (15) pp. 7836-7844. ISSN 0094-8276 (2017) [Refereed Article] http://ecite.utas.edu.au/118752 Earth Sciences Physical geography and environmental geoscience Physical geography and environmental geoscience not elsewhere classified Refereed Article PeerReviewed 2017 ftunivtasecite https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074202 2022-08-29T22:17:06Z Snow thickness on sea ice is a largely under-sampled 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, semi-regional 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. Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Sea ice eCite UTAS (University of Tasmania) Antarctic Haystack ENVELOPE(-19.392,-19.392,75.726,75.726) Geophysical Research Letters 44 15 7836 7844 |
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Open Polar |
collection |
eCite UTAS (University of Tasmania) |
op_collection_id |
ftunivtasecite |
language |
English |
topic |
Earth Sciences Physical geography and environmental geoscience Physical geography and environmental geoscience not elsewhere classified |
spellingShingle |
Earth Sciences Physical geography and environmental geoscience Physical geography and environmental geoscience not elsewhere classified Pfaffhuber, AA Lieser, JL Haas, C Snow thickness profiling on Antarctic sea-ice with GPR - rapid and accurate measurements with the potential to upscale needles to a haystack |
topic_facet |
Earth Sciences Physical geography and environmental geoscience Physical geography and environmental geoscience not elsewhere classified |
description |
Snow thickness on sea ice is a largely under-sampled 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, semi-regional 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. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Pfaffhuber, AA Lieser, JL Haas, C |
author_facet |
Pfaffhuber, AA Lieser, JL Haas, C |
author_sort |
Pfaffhuber, AA |
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 |
publisher |
Amer Geophysical Union |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074202 http://ecite.utas.edu.au/118752 |
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_relation |
http://ecite.utas.edu.au/118752/1/118752.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074202 Pfaffhuber, AA and Lieser, JL and Haas, C, Snow thickness profiling on Antarctic sea-ice with GPR - rapid and accurate measurements with the potential to upscale needles to a haystack, Geophysical Research Letters, 44, (15) pp. 7836-7844. ISSN 0094-8276 (2017) [Refereed Article] http://ecite.utas.edu.au/118752 |
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_ |
1766171043261579264 |