Preliminary results of a low-frequency 3D-sar approach for glacier volume mapping

First experimental results with a low-frequency, ultra widebad (UWB) radar for estimating the height of glacier beds are illustrated. We use a 3-dimensional Time-Domain Back-Projection (TDBP) algorithm which incorporates the influence of the refractivity of ice to reconstruct the glacier bed of the Aletsch Glacier in the Swiss Alps using several CARABAS data sets. As the results indicate, the proposed method underlines the ability of low-frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) to penetrate into glacier ice and thus, to map glacier volumes on a large scale even with only few, suboptimal data acquisitions.