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Processed airborne radio-echo sounding data from the FISS 2016 surveys covering the Filchner and Halley Ice Shelves, and the English Coast (western Palmer Land), West Antarctica (2016/2017) - V2

Three separate airborne radar surveys were flown during the austral summer of 2016/17 over the Filchner Ice Shelf and Halley Ice Shelf (West Antarctica), and over the outlet glacier flows of the English Coast (western Palmer Land, Antarctic Peninsula) during the Filchner Ice Shelf System (FISS) project. This project was a NERC-funded (grant reference number: NE/L013770/1) collaborative initiative between the British Antarctic Survey, the National Oceanography Centre, the Met Office Hadley Centre, University College London, the University of Exeter, Oxford University, and the Alfred Wenger Institute to investigate how the Filchner Ice Shelf might respond to a warmer world, and what the impact of sea-level rise could be by the middle of this century.

The 2016/17 aerogeophysics surveys acquired a total of ~26,000 line km of aerogeophysical data. The FISS survey consisted of 17 survey flights totalling ~16,000 km of radar data over the Support Force, Recovery, Slessor, and Bailey ice streams of the Filchner Ice Shelf. The Halley Ice Shelf survey consisted of ~4,600 km spread over 5 flights and covering the area around the BAS Halley 6 station and the Brunt Ice Shelf. The English Coast survey consisted of ~5,000 km spread over 7 flights departing from the Sky Blu basecamp and linking several outlet glacier flows and the grounding line of the western Palmer Land, including the ENVISAT, CRYOSAT, GRACE, Landsat, Sentinel, ERS, Hall, Nikitin and Lidke ice streams.

Our Twin Otter aircraft was equipped with dual-frequency carrier-phase GPS for navigation, radar altimeter for surface mapping, wing-tip magnetometers, an iMAR strapdown gravity system, and a new ice-sounding radar system (PASIN-2).

We present here the full radar dataset consisting of the deep-sounding chirp and shallow-sounding pulse-acquired data in their processed form, as well as the navigational information of each trace, the surface and bed elevation picks, ice thickness, and calculated absolute surface and bed elevations. This dataset comes primarily in the form of NetCDF and georeferenced SEGY files. To interactively engage with this newly-published dataset, we also created segmented quicklook PDF files of the radar data.

This is Version 2 of the dataset. This version differs from Version 1, as follows:

1. The variables "fast_time" has been updated due to errors found. The error in the variable related to an error in the sampling frequency of the system, which should have been 24 MHz instead of 22MHz. This has been updated.

2. The units in the "surface_pick_layerData" and the "bed_pick_layerData" variables should have been "samples relative to the BAS radar system", instead of "microseconds". This has been corrected.

3. The metadata in this DMS entry and in the NetCDF files has also been updated. Mainly, the sampling frequency has been modified from 22 MHz to 24 MHz to reflect the radar system characteristics. This also affected the value provided for the radar system resolution and sampling interval, which have both been updated in the metadata.

4. The SEGY sampling interval value (byte numbers: 117-118 (SI)) has also been updated to reflect the change in sampling frequency mentioned above.

All other variables remain unchanged. Note that these changes do not affect the radar data or the associated radar-derived data in the files.

Simple

Alternate title
Polar Data Centre (PDC) record GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/01863
Date (Publication)
2024-07-05
Identifier
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/dms/metadata.php?id= / GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/01863
Custodian
  British Antarctic Survey
High Cross, Madingley Road , Cambridge , CB3 0ET , UK
+44 (0)1223 221400
Originator
  NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre - Corr, H., Robinson, C., Jordan, T., Nicholls, K., Brisbourne, A., & Bodart, J.
High Cross, Madingley , Cambridge , CB3 0ET , UK
+44 (0)1223 221400
Maintenance and update frequency
unknown Unknown
Keywords
  • NDGO0001
NERC OAI Harvesting
  • NERC_DDC
GCMD Parameter Valids
  • EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Glaciers/Ice Sheets
  • EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Glaciers/Ice Sheets > Glacier Elevation/Ice Sheet Elevation
  • EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Glaciers/Ice Sheets > Glacier Thickness/Ice Sheet Thickness
  • EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Glaciers/Ice Sheets > Glacier Topography/Ice Sheet Topography
  • EARTH SCIENCE > Spectral/Engineering > Radar
BAS Free-text keywords
  • Aerogeophysics
  • Antarctica
  • ice thickness
  • radar
  • surface elevation
Use limitation

This data is covered by a UK Open Government Licence (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/). Further by downloading this data the user acknowledges that they agree with the NERC data policy (http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/sites/data/policy.asp), and the following conditions:

1. To cite the data in any publication as follows:

Corr, H., Robinson, C., Jordan, T., Nicholls, K., Brisbourne, A., & Bodart, J. (2024). Processed airborne radio-echo sounding data from the FISS 2016 surveys covering the Filchner and Halley Ice Shelves, and the English Coast (western Palmer Land), West Antarctica (2016/2017) - V2 (Version 2.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/e203926b-7a54-4c33-a5df-04df2293d7d3

2. The user recognizes the limitations of data. Use of the data is at the users'' own risk, and there is no warranty as to the quality or accuracy of any data, or the fitness of the data for your intended use. The data are not necessarily fully quality assured and cannot be expected to be free from measurement uncertainty, systematic biases, or errors of interpretation or analysis, and may include inaccuracies in error margins quoted with the data.

Access constraints
otherRestrictions Other restrictions
Other constraints

This data is covered by a UK Open Government Licence (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/). Further by downloading this data the user acknowledges that they agree with the NERC data policy (http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/sites/data/policy.asp), and the following conditions:

1. To cite the data in any publication as follows:

Corr, H., Robinson, C., Jordan, T., Nicholls, K., Brisbourne, A., & Bodart, J. (2024). Processed airborne radio-echo sounding data from the FISS 2016 surveys covering the Filchner and Halley Ice Shelves, and the English Coast (western Palmer Land), West Antarctica (2016/2017) - V2 (Version 2.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/e203926b-7a54-4c33-a5df-04df2293d7d3

2. The user recognizes the limitations of data. Use of the data is at the users'' own risk, and there is no warranty as to the quality or accuracy of any data, or the fitness of the data for your intended use. The data are not necessarily fully quality assured and cannot be expected to be free from measurement uncertainty, systematic biases, or errors of interpretation or analysis, and may include inaccuracies in error margins quoted with the data.

Metadata language
EnglishEnglish
Topic category
  • Elevation
  • Geoscientific information
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Begin date
2016-12-15
End date
2017-01-22
Reference system identifier
OGP / urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::4326
Distribution format
Distributor
  Polar Data Centre - British Antarctic Survey
+44 (0)1223 221400
Protocol
http
Name
GET DATA
Function
download Download
Hierarchy level
dataset Dataset

Domain consistency

Measure identification
INSPIRE / Conformity_001

Conformance result

Date
Explanation
See the referenced specification
Pass
No
Statement

- Average spacing between radar traces: 11 m

- Line spacing: ~3.5-km (English Coast)

- Radar centre frequency: 150 MHz

- Radar bandwidth: 13 MHz

- Radar Receiver vertical sampling frequency: 24 MHz

- Absolute GPS positional accuracy: ~0.1 m (relative accuracy is one order of magnitude better). Banking angle was limited to 10 degrees during aircraft turns to avoid phase issues between GPS receiver and transmitter.

Note: The SEGY and bed pick files for the English Coast section of the FISS 2016/17 surveys can also be found at: https://doi.org/10.5285/e07d62bf-d58c-4187-a019-59be998939cc. However note that the SEGY data found there is not georeferenced. The datasets found here have been considerably curated and improved, and thus can be considered the latest and full dataset.

File identifier
GB_NERC_BAS_PDC_01863 XML
Metadata language
EnglishEnglish
Hierarchy level
dataset Dataset
Date stamp
2024-07-05
Metadata standard name
NERC profile of ISO19115:2003
Metadata standard version
1.0
Point of contact
  British Antarctic Survey
+44 (0)1223 221400
Dataset URI
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/dms/metadata.php?id=GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/01863
 
 

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