Digital Tools for Analog Data: Reconstructing the First Ice-Penetrating Radar Surveys of Antarctica and Greenland

During the 1970s, the first large-scale ice-penetrating radar surveys were conducted over Antarctica and Greenland through a collaboration between the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, the National Science Foundation, and the Technical University of Denmark [1]. This pioneering work represents the earliest available large-scale measurements of the sub-surface conditions of Earth’s two major ice sheets. In many cases, data collected as part of this survey pre-dates other available data in the area by decades. As we experience increasingly rapid changes in Antarctica and Greenland, understanding the historical states of these ice sheets takes on increased importance. Although 45-55 years is a short time in the evolution of continent-scale ice sheets, this dataset is unique in that it represents direct measurements over massive spatial scales. Unfortunately, integration of this data into models has proven extremely difficult due to unique challenges in how the data was collected and stored. We introduce our efforts to build digital tools for this analog dataset to bring this data into the modern era and make it accessible to researchers.