We require a custom built helicopter radar system to image glacier ice up to 1km thick. Current mass estimates of Canadian glaciers are highly inaccurate due to widespread lack of ice thickness data, and modelling of glacier response to climate warming is significantly hindered by limited bed topography data. As such, our ability to predict sea level contributions from Canadian glaciers, hazards from rapidly changing glaciers such as glacier lake outburst floods, downstream water resource availability, and the impact that changing glacier mass will have on Canadian mountain tourism, is limited. This helicopter radar system will allow for large scale, safe data collection over ice masses in glacierized environments across Canada for the first time. This will facilitate the first accurate estimate of ice mass in the world’s largest glaciated area outside of Greenland and Antarctica.
A helicopter radar system for deep ice penetration is a highly customized piece of equipment. The should include a radar system on a helicopter platform that can transmit and receive low frequency (5-10 MHz) signals through ice of varying temperatures with rapid recording times, dual cross-polarized antennas, a radar or laser altimeter to measure the height between the platform and the ice surface for both data analysis and for the helicopter pilot, a GPS receiver, and a software system capable of recording the large volumes of data produced by such an instrument during airborne surveys. Each component of the system must be custom integrated in order to produce reliable and accurate data capture. A light-weight platform will need to be developed that can be transported in Twin Otter planes to allow deployment of the system in High Arctic and remote regions.
The radar system will be flown over 2-3 weeks each spring and summer in the Yukon, the Canadian High Arctic and the Canadian Rockies. The system must be available for use by May 2023 in the Yukon.
