climate research due to their potential effect on sea level rise.
Scientists modeling ice sheets are currently limited by the lack of
data for key study areas. One of the most important parameters
controlling glacier flow is bed topography. For this reason, over
the past five years the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets
(CReSIS) has developed a series of airborne ice penetrating
radar systems to aid in mapping bed topography.
In 2008, CReSIS collected airborne radar data over a 320 km x
160 km grid in the Jakobshavn catchment, West Greenland,
using a Multi-Channel Coherent Radar Depth Sounder. This
data grid was processed using a synthetic aperture algorithm to
perform along track migration. The resulting data set was
loaded into Seismic Micro-Technology's Kingdom Suite
Software package. The bed return, as well as several internal
layers, was interpreted in order to produce a map for glacier
modeling applications. We were able to image the main
Jakobshavn Isbrae channel; in addition two tributary channels
were discovered. The internal layer interpretation reveals
evidence that ice flow within the catchment of Jakobshavn Isbrae
differs significantly from what is predicted by most models.