An alternative representation of Synthetic Aperture Radar images as an aid to the interpretation of englacial observations

Arenas-Pingarrón, Álvaro; Brisbourne, Alex M.; Martín, Carlos; Corr, Hugh F. J.; Robinson, Carl; Jordan, Tom A.; Brennan, Paul V.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-4657-2025

Articles | Volume 19, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-4657-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-4657-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 10

Research article

|

20 Oct 2025

Research article |

| 20 Oct 2025

An alternative representation of Synthetic Aperture Radar images as an aid to the interpretation of englacial observations

Álvaro Arenas-Pingarrón, Alex M. Brisbourne, Carlos Martín, Hugh F. J. Corr, Carl Robinson, Tom A. Jordan, and Paul V. Brennan

Data sets

Ice-sounding airborne synthetic aperture radar depth profiles from Recovery Ice Stream 2016/17 and Rutford Ice Stream 2019/20 to test the RGB-Doppler-Decomposition method. (Version 1.0) [Data set] A. Arenas Pingarron et al. https://doi.org/10.5285/40c2f86b-1a02-4106-934a-42769682df66

Model code and software

antarctica/sar-rgb-spectral-decomposition: SAR_rgb_spectral_decomposition (v1.0.3) A. Arenas-Pingarron https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14962614

Short summary

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imaging is essential for deep englacial observations. Each pixel is formed by averaging the radar echoes within an antenna beamwidth, but the echo diversity is lost after the average. We improve the SAR interpretation if three sub-images are formed with different sub-beamwidths: each is coloured in red, green, or blue, and they are overlapped, creating a coloured image. Interpreters will better identify the slopes of internal layers, crevasses, and layer roughness.