USAP-DC

The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University was awarded a multi-year grant (May 1, 2010- April 30, 2015) to develop an ice imaging system, or "IcePod," for use in measuring the surface and subsurface topography of ice sheets. IcePod will enable research on the effects of global climate change on ice sheets and the effects of sub-glacial water on potential sea-level rise. IcePod sensors are contained in a Common Science Support Pod and operated on NYANG LC-130 aircraft during routine and targeted missions over Greenland and Antarctica. The IcePod instrument package consists of ice-penetrating radar, infrared and visible cameras, laser altimeter, inertial measurement unit, GPS receiver and data acquisition system. IcePod will also enable other instruments to be used in the modular Common Science Support Pod, and will become a shared community research facility providing data to the science community. Funding will support activities in both Greenland and Antarctica needed to commission IcePod, to develop a data reduction flow and data delivery system for IcePod data, and to engineer a UPS to provide IcePod with clean, reliable power for system operation.

Evidence from satellites has documented that the amount of ice in both the earth's polar regions is decreasing as global temperatures increase. Understanding how this change is occurring and building an understanding of how fast these continent-sized pieces of ice will change in the future, is critical as society develops plans for adapting to changing coastlines. To measure change and understand the processes driving these changes requires the capacity to image the polat ice sheets and oceans from long-range aircraft. This award supplemented the original MRI-R2 program that developed innovative airborne imagery technology called IcePod. IcePod can be mounted on any LC-130, the aircraft used in the polar regions, for the major logistical support. The IcePod system was developed by engineers and scientists at Columbia University, working in close collaboration with the New York Air National Guard, who operate the ski-equipped LC-130 aircraft for the National Science Foundation in Antarctica and Greenland. The IcePod instrumentation package presently consists of: a scanning laser for precise measurements of the ice surface, visible and infrared imaging cameras to document the ice surface structure and temperature, ice-penetrating radar to recover the ice thickness and constrain the distribution of water at the ice sheet bed, and shallow-ice radar to measure snow accumulation. A magnetometer system is mounted inside the pod to recover information on the solid earth structure. Positioning of the IcePod during flights and the measurements are provided by precision GPS satellite data and inertial technology. A gravimeter, using its own rack, is also employed in conjunction with the IcePod sensor suite. The final commissioning of the system occurred in November - December 2014 in Antarctica as stipulated in the award. The IcePod was successfully operated in full polar conditions with a series of flights from McMurdo Station over the Ross Ice Shelf, the Ross Sea, the Dry Valleys, the Transantarctic Mountains and to South Pole. Protocol was also developed for data handling, robust data reduction, workflow and quality control and archiving of data.

The system is now available to the polar community for novel imaging applications.

Person	Role
Bell, Robin	Investigator and contact
Frearson, Nicholas	Co-Investigator
Zappa, Christopher	Co-Investigator
Studinger, Michael S.	Co-Investigator

Antarctic Astrophysics and Geospace Sciences	Award # 1444690
Antarctic Earth Sciences	Award # 1444690
Antarctic Instrumentation and Support	Award # 1444690
Antarctic Integrated System Science	Award # 1444690
Antarctic Instrumentation and Support	Award # 0958658	Previous Award MRI-R2: Development of an Ice Imaging System for Monitoring Changing Ice Sheets Mounted on the NYANG LC-130 This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). The icePod system will consist of a suite of imaging sensors mounted in an external pod installed and operated on New York Air National Guard LC-130 aircraft during routine and targeted missions across Antarctica and Greenland. This system will be operated as a shared community research facility providing data to scientists and educators. Instrumentation will include a scanning laser for precise measurements of the ice surface, visible and infrared imaging cameras to document the ice surface structure and temperature, and ice-penetrating radar to recover ice thickness and constrain the distribution of water at the ice sheet bed. Geo-referencing of the measurements will be provided by precision GPS satellite data integrated with inertial technology. Using the icePod system, a majority of the remaining unexplored regions of East Antarctica will become open for study including several key regions in Antarctica. Data from the integrated icePod sensor system will enable novel studies of the dynamics of outlet glaciers, the stability of the West Antarctic ice sheet grounding lines, the nature of the water movement between subglacial lakes and on the role surface melt water plays in the seasonal acceleration of the Greenland ice sheet. This project could provide the integrated ice imaging system capable of measuring in detail both the ice surface and the ice bed. The icePod imaging system will leverage a newly available instrumented door plug developed for Department of Defense Special Forces applications that can be installed in any LC-130 rear troop door. This proposal will design, build, calibrate, test and commission the instrument over a five-year period. A scientific advisory committee will provide input to the icePod team to ensure the system meets the science community?s needs and an operations advisory group will provide input on aircraft operations, logistics, testing and certification. The goal of the icePod project is that the sensor system will become a facility operated for the science community and the data will be served to the science community through a NSF- supported polar data center. Students will be engaged in the development of icePod through design, construction and demonstration of sample measurement systems. The investigators will also build a network of educators who can access, understand and employ the data collected from the icePod, thereby engaging students with the science of environmental change and instrumentation development.

USAP-0958658_1

Deployment	Type
Greenland 2013	airborne survey
McMurdo 2014/15	airborne survey
McMurdo 2015/16, 2016/17, 2017/18	airborne survey

None in the Database

Repository	Title (link)	Format(s)	Status
USAP-DC	Deep ICE (DICE) Radar Dataset from Ross Ice Shelf, Antactica (ROSETTA-Ice)	Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF)	exists
USAP-DC	Shallow Ice Radar (SIR) Dataset from Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica (ROSETTA-Ice)	Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF)	exists

1. N. Frearson and T. Dhakal, "Design and Performance of the IcePod LC-130 Deep and Shallow Radar Sounders," IGARSS 2018 - 2018 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, Valencia, Spain, 2018, pp. 4131-4134. (doi:10.1109/IGARSS.2018.8519125)
2. Bell, R., Tinto, K., Das, I. et al. "Deformation, warming and softening of Greenland’s ice by refreezing meltwater." Nature Geoscience 7, 497–502 (2014). (doi:10.1038/ngeo2179)