AGASEA Ice Thickness Profile Data from the Amundsen Sea Embayment, Antarctica
This data set contains line-based radar-derived ice thickness and bed elevation data, collected as part of the Airborne Geophysical Survey of the Amundsen Embayment (AGASEA) expedition, which took place over Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica from 2004 to 2005.
Table of Contents
- Contacts and Acknowledgments
- Detailed Data Description
- Data Access and Tools
- Data Acquisition and Processing
- References and Related Publications
- Document Information
Citing These Data
The following example shows how to cite the use of this data set in a publication.
Blankenship, D. D., and D. A. Young. 2012. AGASEA Ice Thickness Profile Data from the Amundsen Sea Embayment, Antarctica. Boulder, Colorado USA: National Snow and Ice Data Center. http://dx.doi.org/10.7265/N5W95730.
Overview
| Twin Otter C-FSJB Aircraft | |
Radar |
|
Amundsen Sea Embayment, Antarctica
|
|
| 10 meters depth |
|
10 December 2004 to 29 January 2005 |
|
Ice Thickness |
|
ASCII text (.txt) |
|
Data Access |
1. Contacts and Acknowledgments
Investigators Name and Title
Dr. Donald D. Blankenship
University of Texas at Austin
Institue for Geophysics
Mail Code R2200
10100 Burnet Road
Austin, TX 78758
USA
Dr. Duncan Young
University of Texas at Austin
Institute for Geophysics
Mail Code R2200
10100 Burnet Road
Austin, TX 78758
USA
Technical Contact
NSIDC User Services
National Snow and Ice Data Center
CIRES, 449 UCB
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0449 USA
phone: +1 303.492.6199
fax: +1 303.492.2468
form: Contact NSIDC User Services
e-mail: nsidc@nsidc.org
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Polar Programs (OPP) grant number 0636724.
2. Detailed Data Description
The data set contains ice thickness data acquired during the 2004-05 Airborne Geophysical Survey of the Amundsen Embayment (AGASEA) expedition.
Format
Data are provided in ASCII format.
File and Directory Structure
The directory ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/pub/DATASETS/AGDC/nsidc0517_blankenship_V01/ contains two files;- ase1_foc1_thk.tllzzhr.txt is the ASCII text file that contains the data set.
- crossovers.txt contains crossover information between orthogonal lines.
File Naming Convention
File name example: ase1_foc1_thk.tllzzhr.txt
ase1_foc1_thk.tllzzhr.txt
Where:
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
ase1 |
Field season name |
foc1
|
Dominant processing method |
thk |
Data product (ice thickness) |
tllzzhr |
t = time |
File Size
Two data files are 80 KB and 234 MB.
Volume
The entire data set is approximately 234 MB.
Spatial Coverage
Amundsen Sea Embayment, Antarctica, including Thwaites Glacier, Smith Glacier, and Haynes Glacier
Northernmost Latitude: 73°S
Southernmost Latitude:
80°S
Westernmost Longitude: 125° W
Easternmost Longitude: 90° W
Spatial Resolution
5 mm depth
Temporal Coverage
10 December 2004 to 29 January 2005
Parameter or Variable
Ice thickness
Ice sheet bed elevation
Ice sheet surface elevation
Parameter Description
Table 2 provides descriptions of each of the columns in the ase1_foc1_thk.tllzzhr.txt file.
| Column Number |
Description |
|---|---|
| 1 | Year |
| 2 | Day of Year |
| 3 | Seconds of day |
| 4 | Longitude (decimal degrees) |
| 5 | Latitude (decimal degrees) |
| 6 | Northing (polar stereographic -71 meters) |
| 7 | Easting (polar stereographic -71 meters) |
| 8 | Bed elevation (meters; WGS-84) |
| 9 | Surface elevation (radar-derived; meters, WGS-84) |
| 10 | Ice thickness (meters; 169 m/usec; no firn correction) |
| 11 | Range to surface (meters) |
| 12 | Name of line (text) |
| 13 | Processing (text) |
The cross_overs.txt file contains cross over information between orthogonal lines: The structure of the cross over file is seven space-delimited ASCII columns, as described in Table 3.
| Column Number |
Description |
|---|---|
| 1 | Longitude |
| 2 | Latitude |
| 3 | Easting (polar stereographic -71 meters) |
| 4 | Northing (polar stereographic -71 meters) |
| 5 | Absolute cross over difference between lines (meters) |
| 6 | Name of first line in cross over |
| 7 | Name of second line in cross over |
3. Data Access and Tools
Data Access
Data are available via FTP.
Software and Tools
Data are readable using standard spreadsheet software.
4. Data Acquisition and Processing
The AGASEA survey was conducted using a Twin Otter C-FSJB aircraft equipped with radar, laser, magnetometers, and a gravimeter. AGASEA is described in detail in Holt, et. al., 2006. The aircraft operated from two camps, one to the south of Thwaites Glacier, and one to the East, near Pine Island Glacier, with a range of 1000 km. Seventy-five flights were conducted over 50 days.
Data Acquisition Methods
Data were acquired using the High Capacity Radar Sounder (HiCARS) coherent ice penetrating radar delveloped by the University of Texas Institute of Geophysics. The radar antennas were mounted as dipoles under each wing. The radar had operated with a 60 MHz center frequency and 15 MHz of bandwidth, and used a 8 kW transmitter with a 1 μsec FM chirp and a pulse repetition frequency of 6400 Hz.
The across track beam width is controlled by the antenna beam pattern, and has a main cross-track half-power beam width of 12 degrees, and side lobes at ±22 degrees. The data were down converted to a 10 MHz center frequency, and recorded on two gain offset channels sampled at 50 MHz. Total dynamic range between the 2 channels is 90 dB. These data were coherently stacked 32 times to provide 16-bit 3200 sample coherent records at 200 Hz. In post processing, the data were range compressed with a synthetic chirp, and a 10 MHz coherent system noise was removed.
Derivation Techniques and Algorithms
Processing Steps
In this data set, two further forms of post processing were applied. In primary processing, (1-D focused SAR or "foc1"), in the frequency domain, matched correlation filters derived from GPS trajectories and surface range measurements were used to focus the data in the along track direction (Peters et al, 2007). These data were resampled to 4 Hz along track, converted to amplitude from complex data, and logarithmically scaled for interpretation. The effective beam width was approximately 10 meters on the bed.
The second form of processing ("pik1") was used where good GPS solutions were missing, or issues with aircraft recording prevented focusing. The data was coherently stacked, converted to amplitudes and incoherently stacked 5 times to yield a 4 Hz sampling of the along track data. Given an average aircraft velocity of 70 meters per second this yields a effective coherent aperture of 14 meters and an along-track half-power beam width of 10 degrees. These beam widths illuminate a patch on the bed (at 800 meters above the surface and 2000 meters ice thickness) of 414 meters along track and 920 meters across track (in the main and secondary lobe). For similar conditions the pulse limited footprint is 390 meters.
Once processed, the data were interpreted by a team of undergraduate research assistants, who defined bounds about the bed and surface returns in the high and low gain channels respectively. The closest return to the aircraft was selected for the bed. Between the bounds, the brightest echo with a parabolic intensity profile was automatically detected. No adjustment at cross overs was applied, to preserve the integrity of the error statistics along the full length of the line.
Error Sources
Strictly speaking, what was obtained for each point along the transect was the range between the closest part of the bed over a ~2 km swath and the aircraft. Cross over differences between orthogonal lines are high over mountainous regions to the west and south (~150 meters) and low over the central catchment (~33 meters). The primary cause of these differences is cross track topography. The cross over differences for the entire foc1 data set are 102 meters, implying an uncertainty of 72 meters.
5. References and Related Publications
Holt, J. W., D. D. Blankenship, D. L. Morse, D. A. Young, M. E. Peters, S. D. Kempf, T. G. Richter, D. G. Vaughan, and H. Corr. 2006. New Boundary Conditions for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet: Subglacial Topography of the Thwaites and Smith Glacier Catchments, Geophysical Research Letters, 33(L09502), 10.1029/2005GL025561.
Peters, M. E., D. D. Blankenship, S. P. Carter, D. A. Young, S. D. Kempf, and J. W. Holt. 2007. Along-Track Focusing of Airborne Radar Sounding Data from West Antarctica for Improving Basal Reflection Analysis and Layer Detection, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 45(9), 2725-2736, 10.1109/TGRS.2007.897416.
Peters, M. E., D. D. Blankenship, and D. L. Morse. 2005. Analysis Techniques for Coherent Airborne Radar Sounding: Application to West Antarctic Ice Streams, Journal of Geophysical Research, 110(B06303), 10.1029/2004JB003222.
Related Data Collections
- Airborne Laser Altimetry of the Thwaites Glacier Catchment,West Antarctica
- Antarctic Aerogeophysics Data
- Subglacial Topography: Airborne Geophysical Survey of the Amundsen Sea Embayment, Antarctica
Related Web Sites
- Antarctic Glaciological Data Center at NSIDC
- Airborne Geophysical Survey of the Amundsen Embayment (AGASEA) Project: University of Texas Institute for Geophysics
6. Document Information
Acronyms and Abbreviations
The acronyms used in this document are listed in Table 4.
| Acronym | Description |
|---|---|
| AGDC | Antarctic Glaciological Data Center |
| FTP | File Transfer Protocol |
| NSF | National Science Foundation |
| NSIDC | National Snow and Ice Data Center |
| URL | Uniform Resource Locator |
Document Creation Date
April 12, 2012
Document URL
http://nsidc.org/data/docs/agdc/...
