Radio-Echo Sounding (RES) ACE subcommittee

Context:

Radio-echo sounding (RES) data are fundamental to numerical modelling of the Antarctic ice sheet. RES provides information on:

• ice thickness and subglacial topography, which are essential boundary conditions for ice sheet modelling;
• internal ice sheet layers, which can be used to establish past rates of ice accumulation, basal melt rates and past ice flow changes; and
• the subglacial environment, from which information on bed roughness and basal water production and flow can be derived (basal roughness is a critical parameter for calculating ice flow and the production of subglacial water enables the spatial distribution of geothermal heat to be calculated).

Numerical ice sheet models are capable of fully utilising these measurements and derivatives. However, limitations concerning the spatial extent of RES datasets collected thus far inhibit numerical modelling experiments.

Aim and objectives:

The aim of the ACE-RES committee is to encourage RES data acquisition pertinent to the needs of ice sheet modelling. To do this, the committee will: (1) assess the RES data requirements of the numerical ice sheet modelling community, and (2) provide these requirements to the geophysical community.

The objectives of the committee are to:

• facilitate the compilation of bed topography data (e.g. a programme of BEDMAP updates);
• assist the extraction of essential ice sheet modelling parameters from RES data;
• identify the locations where new RES data are most needed by the ice sheet modelling community;
• provide details of the platforms and logistics, and the instruments and algorithms, necessary for the acquisition and analysis of these new data; and
• encourage international coordination of RES data collection with the ice sheet modelling community through workshops and symposia.

Provisional Committee:

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