A revised and expanded deep radiostratigraphy of the Greenland Ice Sheet from airborne radar sounding surveys between 1993 and 2019
<p>Between 1993 and 2019, NASA and NSF sponsored 26 separate airborne campaigns that surveyed the thickness and radiostratigraphy of the Greenland Ice Sheet using successive generations of coherent VHF radar sounders developed and operated by The University of Kansas. Most of the ice sheet...
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Copernicus Publications
2025-06-01
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| Series: | Earth System Science Data |
| Online Access: | https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/17/2911/2025/essd-17-2911-2025.pdf |
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| author | J. A. MacGregor M. A. Fahnestock J. D. Paden J. Li J. P. Harbeck A. Aschwanden |
| author_facet | J. A. MacGregor M. A. Fahnestock J. D. Paden J. Li J. P. Harbeck A. Aschwanden |
| author_sort | J. A. MacGregor |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | <p>Between 1993 and 2019, NASA and NSF sponsored 26 separate airborne campaigns that surveyed the thickness and radiostratigraphy of the Greenland Ice Sheet using successive generations of coherent VHF radar sounders developed and operated by The University of Kansas. Most of the ice sheet's internal VHF radiostratigraphy is composed of isochronal reflections that record its integrated response to past centennial- to multi-millennial-scale climatic and dynamic events. We previously generated the first comprehensive dated radiostratigraphy of the Greenland Ice Sheet using the first 20 of these campaigns (1993–2013) and investigated its value for constraining the ice sheet's history and modern boundary conditions. Here we describe the second version of this radiostratigraphic dataset using all 26 campaigns, which includes substantial improvements in survey coverage and was mostly acquired with higher-fidelity systems. We improved quality control and accelerated reflection tracing and matching by including an automatic test for stratigraphic conformability, a thickness-normalized reprojection for radargrams, and automatic inter-segment reflection matching. We reviewed and augmented the 1993–2013 radiostratigraphy, and we applied an existing independently developed method for predicting radiostratigraphy to the previously untraced campaigns (2014–2019) to accelerate their semi-automatic tracing. The result is a more robust radiostratigraphy and age structure of the ice sheet that covers up to 65 % of the ice sheet and includes <span class="inline-formula">></span> 58 600 km of newly traced reflections from the 2014–2019 campaigns. This dataset can be used to validate the sensitivity of ice-sheet models to past major climate changes and constrain long-term boundary conditions (e.g., accumulation rate). Based on these results, we make several recommendations for how radiostratigraphy may be traced more efficiently and reliably in the future. This dataset is freely available at <a href="https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14182641">https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14182641</a> (MacGregor et al., 2025). It includes all traced reflections at the spatial resolution of the radargrams and grids (5 km horizontal resolution) of the depths of isochrones between 3 and 115 ka and ages between 10 % and 80 % of the ice thickness; associated codes are available at <a href="https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14183061">https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14183061</a> (MacGregor, 2024a).</p> |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-8a8c7abbf9104cf0b2b2a6987e1f8813 |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 1866-3508 1866-3516 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-06-01 |
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| spelling | doaj-art-8a8c7abbf9104cf0b2b2a6987e1f88132025-08-20T03:24:02ZengCopernicus PublicationsEarth System Science Data1866-35081866-35162025-06-01172911293110.5194/essd-17-2911-2025A revised and expanded deep radiostratigraphy of the Greenland Ice Sheet from airborne radar sounding surveys between 1993 and 2019J. A. MacGregor0M. A. Fahnestock1J. D. Paden2J. Li3J. P. Harbeck4A. Aschwanden5Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, United States of AmericaGeophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, United States of AmericaCenter for Remote Sensing and Integrated Systems, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, United States of AmericaCenter for Remote Sensing and Integrated Systems, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, United States of AmericaADNET Systems, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of AmericaGeophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, United States of America<p>Between 1993 and 2019, NASA and NSF sponsored 26 separate airborne campaigns that surveyed the thickness and radiostratigraphy of the Greenland Ice Sheet using successive generations of coherent VHF radar sounders developed and operated by The University of Kansas. Most of the ice sheet's internal VHF radiostratigraphy is composed of isochronal reflections that record its integrated response to past centennial- to multi-millennial-scale climatic and dynamic events. We previously generated the first comprehensive dated radiostratigraphy of the Greenland Ice Sheet using the first 20 of these campaigns (1993–2013) and investigated its value for constraining the ice sheet's history and modern boundary conditions. Here we describe the second version of this radiostratigraphic dataset using all 26 campaigns, which includes substantial improvements in survey coverage and was mostly acquired with higher-fidelity systems. We improved quality control and accelerated reflection tracing and matching by including an automatic test for stratigraphic conformability, a thickness-normalized reprojection for radargrams, and automatic inter-segment reflection matching. We reviewed and augmented the 1993–2013 radiostratigraphy, and we applied an existing independently developed method for predicting radiostratigraphy to the previously untraced campaigns (2014–2019) to accelerate their semi-automatic tracing. The result is a more robust radiostratigraphy and age structure of the ice sheet that covers up to 65 % of the ice sheet and includes <span class="inline-formula">></span> 58 600 km of newly traced reflections from the 2014–2019 campaigns. This dataset can be used to validate the sensitivity of ice-sheet models to past major climate changes and constrain long-term boundary conditions (e.g., accumulation rate). Based on these results, we make several recommendations for how radiostratigraphy may be traced more efficiently and reliably in the future. This dataset is freely available at <a href="https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14182641">https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14182641</a> (MacGregor et al., 2025). It includes all traced reflections at the spatial resolution of the radargrams and grids (5 km horizontal resolution) of the depths of isochrones between 3 and 115 ka and ages between 10 % and 80 % of the ice thickness; associated codes are available at <a href="https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14183061">https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14183061</a> (MacGregor, 2024a).</p>https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/17/2911/2025/essd-17-2911-2025.pdf |
| spellingShingle | J. A. MacGregor M. A. Fahnestock J. D. Paden J. Li J. P. Harbeck A. Aschwanden A revised and expanded deep radiostratigraphy of the Greenland Ice Sheet from airborne radar sounding surveys between 1993 and 2019 Earth System Science Data |
| title | A revised and expanded deep radiostratigraphy of the Greenland Ice Sheet from airborne radar sounding surveys between 1993 and 2019 |
| title_full | A revised and expanded deep radiostratigraphy of the Greenland Ice Sheet from airborne radar sounding surveys between 1993 and 2019 |
| title_fullStr | A revised and expanded deep radiostratigraphy of the Greenland Ice Sheet from airborne radar sounding surveys between 1993 and 2019 |
| title_full_unstemmed | A revised and expanded deep radiostratigraphy of the Greenland Ice Sheet from airborne radar sounding surveys between 1993 and 2019 |
| title_short | A revised and expanded deep radiostratigraphy of the Greenland Ice Sheet from airborne radar sounding surveys between 1993 and 2019 |
| title_sort | revised and expanded deep radiostratigraphy of the greenland ice sheet from airborne radar sounding surveys between 1993 and 2019 |
| url | https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/17/2911/2025/essd-17-2911-2025.pdf |
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