A 3D map of englacial attenuation rate from radar reflections at Law Dome, East Antarctica

The East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) is the largest source of potential sea-level rise, containing some 19 m of sea-level equivalent. One of the well-investigated regions in East Antarctica is Law Dome, which is a small independent ice cap situated to the west of Totten Ice Shelf. The ice cap is slow-moving, has a low melt-rate at the surface and moderate wind speeds, making it a useful study site for our investigations. Radar data from Investigating the Cryospheric Evolution of the Central Antarctic Plate (ICECAP) project has good coverage over this area. A new method is proposed for the estimation of attenuation rate from radar data which is mathematically modeled as a constrained regularised l2 minimization problem. In the proposed method, only radar data is required and the englacial reflectors are automatically detected from the radar data itself. A final product of 3D attenuation rates and 3D samples count is provided for the research community in this data set.

东南极冰盖（East Antarctic Ice Sheet, EAIS）是潜在海平面上升的最大贡献源，其蕴含的冰量等效于约19米的海平面当量。南极东部地区研究较为充分的区域之一为劳穹冰盖（Law Dome），它是坐落于托滕冰架（Totten Ice Shelf）西侧的小型独立冰盖。该冰盖移动缓慢、地表消融速率较低且风速适中，是本研究的理想观测站点。南极中部板块冰盖演化调查（Investigating the Cryospheric Evolution of the Central Antarctic Plate, ICECAP）项目获取的雷达数据在该区域覆盖度良好。本研究提出了一种基于雷达数据估算衰减率的新方法，该方法将数学模型构建为约束正则化L2最小化问题。所提方法仅需使用雷达数据，即可从雷达数据中自动检测冰内反射层。本数据集为学术共同体提供了三维衰减率与三维样本计数两类最终产品。