EGUsphere EGUsphere EGUsphere EGUsphere Copernicus Publications Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/egusphere-2025-5328 Review article: 30 years of airborne radar surveys on the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets by the Alfred Wegener Institute Franke Steven https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8462-4379 1 2 7 Steinhage Daniel https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4737-9751 2 7 Helm Veit https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7788-9328 2 7 Binder Tobias https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9826-8835 2 5 Nixdorf Uwe 2 Miller Heinrich 2 Humbert Angelika https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0244-8760 2 3 Jansen Daniela https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4412-5820 2 Eagles Graeme https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5325-0810 2 Eisermann Hannes 2 Jokat Wilfried 2 Ruppel Antonia 3 Drews Reinhard https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2328-294X 1 Zuhr Alexandra https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3861-365X 1 Driemel Amelie https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8667-5217 2 Walter Andreas 2 Konopatzky Peter https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3922-8398 2 Heß Robin 2 6 Haas Antonie https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3771-4125 2 Koppe Roland https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2826-3932 2 Andreas Pascal H. https://orcid.org/0009-0003-1777-8708 2 Eisen Olaf https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6380-962X 2 4 Department of Geosciences, Tübingen University, Tübingen, Germany Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), Hanover, Germany Faculty of Geosciences, University of Bremen, Bremen, German now at: Atlas Elektronik GmbH, Hamburg, Germany formerly at: Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany These authors contributed equally to this work. 04 12 2025 2025 1 60 Copyright: © 2025 Steven Franke et al. 2025 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2025-5328/ The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2025-5328/egusphere-2025-5328.pdf

The Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), has conducted airborne radar campaigns since 1994 across Antarctica and Greenland, utilizing six different radar systems to study ice sheets and their interactions with climate, ocean and the solid Earth. In this review article, we describe AWI's airborne radar systems and their deployments over the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheet. Moreover, we summarize application and usage of AWI radar systems, which provided crucial insights into e.g., ice dynamics, mass balance, and ancient landscapes buried beneath the ice. The integration of radar data with other geophysical methods has enhanced bathymetric models, improving predictions of ice<span>&ndash;</span>ocean interactions and ice-shelf stability and contributed to a better understanding of crustal and geological evolution of the Antarctic continent. To support scientific progress, AWI made its airborne radar data publicly accessible through the <em>Radar Data over Polar Ice Sheets</em> viewer hosted by the Marine Data Portal (<a href="https://marine-data.de/viewers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://marine-data.de/viewers/</a>) and PANGAEA (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.972094" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.972094</a>), ensuring compliance with FAIR principles. Future research will expand on these contributions, focusing on refining ice-sheet models and exploring new areas of glaciological and geological interest.

 Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft 506043073 541978456 522419679