Observing Antarctic Ice-sheet Conditions Using Ice-Penetrating Radar

Radio echo sounding is a uniquely powerful geophysical technique for~studying the interior of ice sheets, glaciers, and icy planetary bodies. It~can provide broad coverage and deep penetration as well as interpretable ice~thickness, basal topography, and englacial radio stratigraphy. However,~despite the long tradition of glaciological interpretation of radar images,~quantitative analyses of radar sounding data are rare and face several~technical challenges. These include attenuation uncertainty from unknown ice~temperature and chemistry, clutter and losses from surface and volume~scattering, and a lack of problem-specific radar theory. However, there is~rich, often underexploited, information in modern radar sounding data, which~is being collected over terrestrial and planetary ice at an unprecedented~rate. The development and application of hypothesis-driven analysis~approaches for these data can place observational constraints on the~morphologic, hydrologic, geologic, mechanical, thermal, and oceanographic~configurations of ice sheets and glaciers. These boundary conditions -- and~the physical processes which they express and control -- are filling a~fundamental gap our ability to understand the evolution of both marine ice~sheets and icy moons. These include the subglacial hydrology of marine ice~sheets and the thermophysical structure of planetary ice shells.