• norsk
    • English
  • English 
    • norsk
    • English
  • Login
View Item 
  •   Home
  • Norges Geotekniske Institutt
  • NGI articles
  • View Item
  •   Home
  • Norges Geotekniske Institutt
  • NGI articles
  • View Item
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

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
Peer reviewed, Journal article
Published version
Thumbnail
View/Open
Pfaffhuber_etal%282017%29GRL.pdf (3.549Mb)
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2451679
Date
2017
Metadata
Show full item record
Collections
  • NGI articles [969]
Original version
10.1002/2017GL074202
Abstract
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.
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters

Contact Us | Send Feedback

Privacy policy
DSpace software copyright © 2002-2019  DuraSpace

Service from  Unit
 

 

Browse

ArchiveCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsDocument TypesJournalsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsDocument TypesJournals

My Account

Login

Statistics

View Usage Statistics

Contact Us | Send Feedback

Privacy policy
DSpace software copyright © 2002-2019  DuraSpace

Service from  Unit