Correlation between Antarctic dry snow properties and backscattering characteristics in RADARSAT imagery

This work has been carried out as part of the pre-site survey for the EPICA ice core drilling project in Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica. The spatial distribution of backscattering characteristics over the dry snow zone of the Amundsenisen plateau has been investigated based on Radarsat Standard Beam and ScanSAR imagery acquired in May 1997. Even over this topographically and climatologically homogeneous region, the backscattering coefficients sigma show significant spatial variations. Profiles of dielectric constant and density for 17 firn cores collected during field campaigns in December 1997 and January 1998 have been analyzed using statistical and geostatistical methods to investigate the relationship between backscattering and physical properties of Antarctic firn.