Abstract

Radio echo sounding data of ice sheets reveals the ice thickness, the bed topography and the internal ice layers. Internal ice layers represent the paleo-ice surfaces, which were buried by surface accumulation and advected with time by ice flow. These reflecting layers can therefore be treated as layers of the same age (isochrones) and in combination with age layers calculated from numerical models can be used to learn more about ice dynamics and boundary conditions. Information extracted from radar layers are e.g. the temporal and spatial accumulation pattern over a large area, where previously only point information from boreholes was available. Furthermore the data allows to investigate the basal conditions of the ice sheet and its flow dynamics, and potentially to infer for its long-term history. In this talk I will show how numerical modelling can be used to explore radar layer architecture, thereby improving our understanding of ice sheet dynamics.