Abstract:
An airborne radar survey was flown as part of the BBAS science programme funded by the British Antarctic Survey over the Pine Island Glacier system during the austral summer of 2004/05. This survey was a collaborative US/UK field campaign which undertook a systematic geophysical survey of the entire Amundsen Sea embayment using comparable airborne survey systems mounted in Twin Otter aircraft.
Operating from a temporary field camp (PNE, S 77deg34' W 095deg56'), we collected ~35,000 km of airborne survey data. Our aircraft was equipped with dual-frequency carrier-phase GPS for navigation, radar altimeter for surface mapping, wing-tip magnetometers, gravity meter, and the first version of a new ice-sounding radar system (PASIN) used for the first time to support this survey.
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.
Keywords:
Antarctic, aerogeophysics, ice thickness, radar, surface elevation
Corr, H., Ferraccioli, F., & Vaughan, D. (2021). Processed airborne radio-echo sounding data from the BBAS survey covering the Pine Island Glacier basin, West Antarctica (2004/2005) (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/db8bdbad-6893-4a77-9d12-a9bcb7325b70
| Access Constraints: | None |
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| Use 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., Ferraccioli, F., & Vaughan, D. (2021). Processed airborne radio-echo sounding data from the BBAS survey covering the Pine Island Glacier basin, West Antarctica (2004/2005) (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/DB8BDBAD-6893-4A77-9D12-A9BCB7325B70 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. |
| Creation Date: | 2021-07-21 |
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| Dataset Progress: | Complete |
| Dataset Language: | English |
| ISO Topic Categories: |
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| Parameters: |
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| Personnel: | |
| Name | PDC BAS |
| Role(s) | Metadata Author |
| Organisation | British Antarctic Survey |
| Name | Mr Hugh Corr |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | British Antarctic Survey |
| Name | Dr Fausto Ferraccioli |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | British Antarctic Survey |
| Name | Prof David Vaughan |
| Role(s) | Investigator |
| Organisation | British Antarctic Survey |
| Parent Dataset: | N/A |
| Reference: | Details of survey location and design can be found at: Vaughan, D.G., Corr, H.F.J., Ferraccioli, F., Frearson, N., O"Hare, A., Mach, D., Holt, J.W., Blankenship, D., Morse, D.L. & Young, D.A. 2006. New boundary conditions for the West Antarctic ice sheet: Subglacial topography beneath Pine Island Glacier. Geophysical Research Letters. 33. L09501, doi:10.1029/2005GL025588. More information on the radar system and processing can be found at: Corr, H.F., Ferraccioli, F., Frearson, N., Jordan, T., Robinson, C., Armadillo, E., Caneva, G., Bozzo, E. and Tabacco, I., 2007. Airborne radio-echo sounding of the Wilkes Subglacial Basin, the Transantarctic Mountains and the Dome C region. Terra Antartica Reports, 13, pp.55-63. |
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| Quality: | - Trace spacing (post-processed data): ~20 m - Vertical resolution: ~8.4 m - Radar centre frequency: 150 MHz - Radar bandwidth: 10 MHz - Radar Receiver vertical sampling frequency: 22 MHz - Absolute GPS positional accuracy: <1.0 m (relative accuracy is one order of magnitude better). Banking angle was limited to 10 deg during aircraft turns to avoid phase issues between GPS receiver and transmitter. Most flights were flown in a regular 30-km grid and at the constant elevation for the acquisition of gravity data. However, five flightlines over the main trunk and tributaries of Pine Island Glacier where gravity data were not acquired, were flown at a constant 150-m terrain clearance to optimize radar data. Crossover analysis of the bed/surface pick data along flight lines reveals RMS differences of ~23 m in ice thickness, which primarily results from off-nadir reflections and interpretation/digitizing uncertainty. Please note: The surface and bed pick information (surface and bed elevation, ice thickness, etc.) can also be found at: https://doi.org/10.5285/3adb739a-9eda-434d-9883-03ab092cabae.The datasets found here have been considerably curated and improved, and thus can be considered the latest and full dataset. |
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| Lineage: | ** Instrumentation and Processing: Radar data were collected using the bistatic PASIN radar echo sounding system mounted on the De Havilland Twin Otter aircraft "DHC-6" and operating with a centre frequency of 150 MHz and using two interleaved pulses: a 4-microseconds, 10 MHz bandwidth linear chirp (deep sounding) and a 0.1-microseconds unmodulated pulse (shallow sounding). Chirp compression was applied using a Blackman window to minimise sidelobe levels, resulting in a processing gain of 10 dB. Incoherent statcking of 10 consecutive traces is also applied to enhance echo signal noise. No Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) processing is applied to the data. The chirp data was processed using an incoherent averaging filter along a moving window of length 33. This data is best used to assess the bed and internals in deep ice conditions. The pulse data was processed using an incoherent averaging filter and using a combination of the upper and lower channels. This data is best used to assess the internal structure and bed in shallow ice conditions Note: Flightline P01, P02, and T03 only contain the chirp data as no pulse data was acquired during those flights. The bed reflector was first automatically depicted on the chirp data using a semi-automatic picker in the PROMAX software package. All the picks were afterwards checked and corrected by hand if necessary. The picked travel time was then converted to depth using a radar wave speed of 168 m/microseconds and a constant firn correction of 10 m. Surface elevation is derived from radar altimeter for ground clearance < 750 m, and the PASIN system for higher altitudes. Note: Flightline T03 does not contain bed elevation, bed pick and ice thickness values. These were given a value of "-9999" ** Coordinates and Positions: The coordinates provided in the NetCDF for the surface and bed elevation for each radar trace are in longitude and latitude (WGS84, EPSG: 4326). The navigation attributes for the radar data in the NetCDF are in projected X and Y coordinates (Polar Stereographic, EPSG: 3031), as follows: Latitude of natural origin: -71 Longitude of natural origin: 0 Scale factor at natural origin: 0.994 False easting: 0 False northing: 2082760.109 The coordinates in the SEGY data are also in projected X and Y coordinates (Polar Stereographic, EPSG: 3031), although note that these are in integer format due to the SEGY limitations (see section below). Positions are calculated for the phase centre of the aircraft antenna. All positions (Longitude, Latitude and Height) are referred to the WGS1984 ellipsoid. ** Dataset: Please note: Due to the unstable nature of SEGY-formatted data and its uncertain long-term future, as well as the issues documented below, we also provide the full radar data in NetCDF format. The dataset provided here consists of three parts: a NetCDF file per flightline, two SEGY files per flightline (one chirp and one pulse), and one quicklook PDF file per flightline. These are described in more details below. - NetCDF: The NetCDF files contain the deep-sounding chirp and shallow-sounding pulse-acquired data in their processed form, as well as the associated metadata, navigational information (in both EPSG: 3031 and WGS84 EPSG: 4326), and the associated radar-related information for each trace (e.g. surface/bed elevation and picks, ice thickness, aircraft altitude, range to surface, time of trace) which are provided as separate attributes in the NetCDF file. The navigational position of each trace comes from the surface files, and the processed GPS files when no surface information was provided in the surface files. Note that for these, interpolation of the navigational data might have been required to match closely the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) of each trace in the surface files. No data is shown as "-9999" throughout the files. NetCDF attributes: - 'traces': Trace number for the radar data (x axis) - 'fast_time': Two-way travel time (y axis) (units: microseconds) - 'x_coordinates': Cartesian x-coordinates for the radar data (x axis) (units: meters in WGS84 EPSG:3031) - 'y_coordinates': Cartesian y-coordinates for the radar data (x axis) (units: meters in WGS84 EPSG:3031) - 'chirp_data': Radar data for the processed (incoherent) chirp (units: power in dBm) - 'pulse_data': Radar data for the processed (incoherent) pulse (units: power in dBm) - 'longitude_layerData': Longitudinal position of the trace number (units: degree_east in WGS84 EPSG:4326) - 'latitude_layerData' : Latitudinal position of the trace number (units: degree_north in WGS84 EPSG:4326) - 'UTC_time_layerData': Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) of trace (also known as resTime) (units: seconds) - 'PriNumber_layerData': Incremental integer reference number related to initialisation of the radar system that permits processed SEGY data and picked surface and bed to be linked back to raw radar data (also known as PriNum) (units: arbitrary - integers) - 'terrainClearanceAircraft_layerData': Terrain clearance distance from platform to air interface with ice, sea or ground (also known as resHt) (units: meters) - 'aircraft_altitude_layerData': Aircraft altitude (also known as Eht) (units: meters relative to WGS84 ellipsoid) - 'surface_altitude_layerData': Ice surface elevation for the trace number from radar altimeter and LiDAR (units: meters relative to WGS84 ellipsoid) - 'surface_pick_layerData': Location down trace of surface pick (BAS system) (units: microseconds) - 'bed_altitude_layerData': Bedrock elevation for the trace number derived by subtracting ice thickness from surface elevation (units: meters relative to WGS84 ellipsoid) - 'bed_pick_layerData': Location down trace of bed pick (BAS system) (units: microseconds) - 'land_ice_thickness_layerData': Ice thickness for the trace number obtained by multiplying the two-way travel-time between the picked ice surface and ice sheet bed by 168 m/microseconds and applying a 10 meter correction for the firn layer (units: meters) - SEGY: The SEGY files are provided for both the chirp and pulse-acquired data and have been georeferenced using the navigational position of each trace from the surface files, and the processed GPS files when no surface information was provided in the surface files. Note that for these, interpolation of the navigational data might have been required to match closely the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) of each trace in the surface files. SEGY header description: - byte number 1-4 and 5-8 (SEQWL and SEQWR): Trace number for the SEGY - byte number 9-12 (FFID): PriNumber for each SEGY trace - byte number 73-76 (SRCX): Cartesian x-coordinates for each SEGY trace (units: meters in WGS84 EPSG:3031) - byte number 77-80 (SRCY): Cartesian y-coordinates for each SEGY trace (units: meters in WGS84 EPSG:3031) - byte number 115-116 (NSMP): Number of samples for each SEGY trace - byte number 117-118 (SI): Sampling interval for each SEGY trace Note that the current version of the SEGY (Revision 1.0) does not yet allow to store double-precision floats in the "Source X/Y" trace headers and thus the X and Y positions for each trace are rounded to the nearest integer when exporting the data. This will affect the accurate position of each trace in the SEGY data, however the precise X and Y position of each trace can be obtained from the NetCDF files if necessary. When loading in the georeferenced SEGY files into seismic-interpretation software for data visualisation and analysis, the user might be warned that duplicate traces are found within the data and that this might cause "bad performance". This is caused by the rounding of the X and Y positions in the SEGY headers as explained above and should only affect the position of a relatively small amount of traces. - Quicklook: The quicklook PDF files were produced to allow for a quick visualisation of the radar data and the position of each flightline with regards to the rest of the survey flightlines. The radar image in the PDF is from the processed chirp radar data and is split into 50-km segments for the BBAS survey. These segments (and the radar images associated with them) are the same as those shown on the Polar Airborne Geophysics Data Portal. |
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| Ownership: | This work was funded by the British Antarctic Survey in support of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). The campaign received logistical support from the British Antarctic Survey and National Science Foundation and was conducted in collaboration with the University of Texas. | |
| Temporal Coverage: | |
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| Start Date | 2004-12-11 |
| End Date | 2005-01-21 |
| Spatial Coverage: | |
| Latitude | |
| Southernmost | -81.1 |
| Northernmost | -73.5 |
| Longitude | |
| Westernmost | -112.9 |
| Easternmost | -72.7 |
| Altitude | |
| Min Altitude | N/A |
| Max Altitude | N/A |
| Depth | |
| Min Depth | N/A |
| Max Depth | N/A |
| Data Resolution: | |
| Latitude Resolution | N/A |
| Longitude Resolution | N/A |
| Horizontal Resolution Range | 30 meters - < 100 meters |
| Vertical Resolution | N/A |
| Vertical Resolution Range | 1 meter - < 10 meters |
| Temporal Resolution | N/A |
| Temporal Resolution Range | N/A |
| Location: | |
| Location | Antarctica |
| Detailed Location | Pine Island Glacier |
| Sensor(s): |
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| Source(s): |
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| Data Collection: | ** Instrument: Radar data were collected using the bistatic PASIN (Polarimetric radar Airborne Science Instrument) radar echo sounding system mounted on the De Havilland Twin Otter aircraft "DHC-6" and operating with a centre frequency of 150 MHz and using two interleaved pulses: a 4-microseconds, 10 MHz bandwidth linear chirp (deep sounding) and a 0.1-microseconds unmodulated pulse (shallow sounding). The Pulse Repetition Frequency was 15,635 Hz (pulse repetition interval: 64 microseconds). ** Antenna configuration: 8 folded dipole elements: 4 transmitters (port side) 4 receivers (starboard side) Antenna gain: 11 dBi (with 4 elements) Transmit power: 1 kW into each 4 antennae Maximum transmit duty cycle: 10% at full power (4 x 1 kW) ** Radar receiver configuration: Receiver vertical sampling frequency: 22 MHz (resulting in sampling interval of 45.4546 ns) Receiver coherent stacking: 25 Receiver digital filtering: -50 dBc at Nyquist (11 MHz) Effective PRF: 312.5 Hz (post-hardware stacking) Sustained data rate: 10.56 Mbytes/second |
| Distribution: | |
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| Distribution Media | Online Internet (HTTP) |
| Distribution Size | 30 GB |
| Distribution Format | netCDF |
| Fees | N/A |
| Data Storage: | This dataset comprises of: - 36x NetCDF files (one per flightline) containing the chirp and pulse radar data, the navigational data of each trace, as well as the surface and bed elevation/pick information, ice thickness data, aircraft altitude, etc. (Total size: 14.5GB). - 69x georeferenced SEGY files (2x per flightline except for flightlines P01, P02, P03): 36x for chirp and 33x for pulse. (Total size: 15GB). - 36x quicklook PDF files (one per flightline) containing the segmented radar profiles and a map of the segment for quick visualisation (Total size: 500 MB). |