A Combined Active and Passive Method for the Remote Sensing of Ice Sheet Temperature Profiles

The Ultra-Wideband Software defined microwave radiometer (UWBRAD) was developed to probe internal ice sheet temperatures using 0.5-2 GHz microwave radiometry. The airborne brightness temperature data of UWBRAD show a significant reduction due to reflections of surface layering of density fluctuations making difficult the retrieval of subsurface temperature in the kilometer range of depth. Such reflections can be measured by the ultra-wideband radar in the same frequency range suggesting a combined active and passive remote sensing of polar ice sheets. In this paper, we develop a coherent reflectivity model for both ice sheet thermal emission and backscattering. Maxwell equations are used to calculate the coherent reflections from the cap layers, and the WKB approximation is used to calculate the transmission for the slowly varying profile below the cap layers. Results are then shown to demonstrate the use of radar measurements to compensate reflection effects on brightness temperatures. It is shown that the reflections corrected brightness temperature is directly related to the physical temperature and absorption profile making possible the retrieval of subsurface temperature profile with multi-frequency measurements.