BGS Hosted Metadata
BEDMAP3 - Ice thickness, bed and surface elevation for Antarctica - gridding products
We present here Bedmap3, the latest suite of gridded products describing surface elevation, ice-thickness and the seafloor and subglacial bed elevation of Antarctica south of 60degS.
Bedmap3 incorporates and adds to all post-1950s datasets previously used for Bedmap1 and Bedmap2, including 84 new aero-geophysical surveys by 15 data providers, an additional 52 million data points and 1.9 million line-kilometres of measurement. This has filled notable gaps in East Antarctica, including the South Pole and Pensacola basin, Dronning Maud Land, Recovery Glacier and Dome Fuji, Princess Elizabeth Land, plus the Antarctic Peninsula, West Antarctic coastlines, and the Transantarctic Mountains. Our new Bedmap3/RINGS grounding line similarly consolidates multiple recent mappings into a single, spatially coherent feature. Combined with updated maps of surface topography, ice shelf thickness, rock outcrops and bathymetry, Bedmap3 reveals in much greater detail the subglacial landscape and distribution of Antarctica's ice, providing new opportunities to interpret continental-scale landscape evolution and to model in detail the past and future evolution of the Antarctic ice sheets.
Sponsored by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), the Bedmap3 Action group aims to produce a new map and datasets of Antarctic ice thickness and bed topography for the international scientific community.
The associated Bedmap datasets are listed here: https://www.bas.ac.uk/project/bedmap/#data
Simple
- Date (Creation)
- 2022-02-28
- Date (Revision)
- 2022-02-28
- Date (Publication)
- 2022-02-28
- Date (released)
- 2022-02-28
- Edition
-
1.0
- Unique resource identifier
- https://doi.org/10.5285/2d0e4791-8e20-46a3-80e4-f5f6716025d2
- Codespace
-
doi
- Unique resource identifier
- GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/01615
- Codespace
- Other citation details
-
Please cite this item as: Pritchard, H., Fretwell, P., Fremand, A., Bodart, J., Kirkham, J., Aitken, A., Bamber, J., Bell, R., Bianchi, C., Bingham, R., Blankenship, D., Casassa, G., Catania, G., Christianson, K., Conway, H., Corr, H., Cui, X., Damaske, D., Damn, V., ... Zirizzotti, A. (2024). BEDMAP3 - Ice thickness, bed and surface elevation for Antarctica - gridding products (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/2d0e4791-8e20-46a3-80e4-f5f6716025d2
- Credit
-
No credit.
- Status
- Completed
- Point of contact
- Maintenance and update frequency
- As needed
- Maintenance note
- Completed
- Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Science Keywords
-
- EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Glaciers/Ice Sheets > Glacier Elevation/Ice Sheet Elevation
- EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Glaciers/Ice Sheets > Glacier Thickness/Ice Sheet Thickness
- EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Glaciers/Ice Sheets > Glacier Topography/Ice Sheet Topography
- EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Glaciers/Ice Sheets
- Theme
-
-
BEDMAP
-
Elevation
-
Ice thickness
-
- Place
-
-
Antarctica
-
-
GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0
- Access constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
- no limitations to public access
- Access constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
- no limitations
- Use constraints
- License
- Other constraints
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
- Use constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
-
This data is governed by the NERC Data Policy: https://www.ukri.org/who-we-are/nerc/our-policies-and-standards/nerc-data-policy/
- Use constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
-
Further by downloading this data the user acknowledges that they agree with the NERC data policy (), and the following conditions:
1. To cite the data and the Bedmap3 publication in any publication as follows:
DATA:
Pritchard, H., Fretwell, P., Fremand, A., Bodart, J., Kirkham, J., Aitken, A., Bamber, J., Bell, R., Bianchi, C., Bingham, R., Blankenship, D., Casassa, G., Catania, G., Christianson, K., Conway, H., Corr, H., Cui, X., Damaske, D., Damn, V., ... Zirizzotti, A. (2024). BEDMAP3 - Ice thickness, bed and surface elevation for Antarctica - gridding products (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/2d0e4791-8e20-46a3-80e4-f5f6716025d2
PAPER:
Pritchard, H.D., Fretwell, P.T., Fremand, A.C. et al. Bedmap3 updated ice bed, surface and thickness gridded datasets for Antarctica. Sci Data 12, 414 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-04672-y
2. The user recognizes the limitations of data. Use of the data is at the users' own risk, and there is no warranty as to the quality or accuracy of any data, or the fitness of the data for your intended use. The data are not necessarily fully quality assured and cannot be expected to be free from measurement uncertainty, systematic biases, or errors of interpretation or analysis, and may include inaccuracies in error margins quoted with the data.
- Use constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
-
None
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- url
- Codespace
-
url
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- url
- Codespace
-
url
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Unique resource identifier
- doi
- Codespace
-
doi
- Association Type
- Cross reference
- Spatial representation type
- Text, table
- Language
- English
- Character set
- UTF8
- Topic category
-
- Elevation
- Environment
- Geoscientific information
))
- Begin date
- 1966-01-01
- End date
- 2024-11-01
- Supplemental Information
-
It is recommended that careful attention be paid to the contents of any data, and that the author be contacted with any questions regarding appropriate use. If you find any errors or omissions, please report them to polardatacentre@bas.ac.uk.
- Title
-
European Petroleum Survey Group (EPSG) Geodetic Parameter Registry
- Date (Publication)
- 2008-11-12
- Cited responsible party
-
Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role European Petroleum Survey Group
Publisher
- Unique resource identifier
- urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::3031
- Version
-
6.18.3
Distributor
- Distributor contact
-
Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre Distributor
- Distributor format
-
Name Version text/plain image/tiff
- Units of distribution
-
bytes
- Transfer size
- 2222645576
- OnLine resource
-
Protocol Linkage Name WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link
http://ramadda.data.bas.ac.uk/repository/entry/show?entryid=2d0e4791-8e20-46a3-80e4-f5f6716025d2 Get Data
- Units of distribution
-
bytes
- Transfer size
- 2222645576
- OnLine resource
-
Protocol Linkage Name WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link
http://ramadda.data.bas.ac.uk/repository/entry/show?entryid=2d0e4791-8e20-46a3-80e4-f5f6716025d2 Get Data
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
- Statement
-
Methodology:
We created the Bedmap3 classification mask and grids of surface elevation, ice thickness, bed topography and uncertainty from a combination of new and existing interpolations of discontinuous survey datasets (airborne ice thickness, ship-borne bathymetry), existing gridded datasets from satellite-based mapping of rock outcrops, surface topography and ice shelf thickness, and a compilation of grounding zone coastal features extracted from satellite analysis. These outputs were created in the ArcGIS Pro software package. Specific details are provided in the associated paper (Prichard et al.)
Data quality:
All the grids have a cell size of 500m in the WGS 1984 Antarctic Polar Stereographic projection (EPSG:3031). Some specific quality control checks and corrections (e.g. negative height relative to sea level for 'sea' cells while 'non-sea' cells have positive values) have been undertaken and are extensively described in the associated paper (Pritchard et al.).
The uncertainty grids have been calculated through error budgets based upon a combination of published uncertainties and our own tests of accuracy and precision. The input datasets inherently have uncertainties with differing statistical distributions, and not all are well known. Furthermore, most Bedmap3 cells have values that are interpolated between sparse observations, and the uncertainties in this process are also difficult to quantify. Our uncertainties are therefore a best estimate based on the available evidence, given to approximately the 1-sigma level.
Metadata
- File identifier
- 2d0e4791-8e20-46a3-80e4-f5f6716025d2 XML
- Metadata language
- English
- Character set
- UTF8
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
- Hierarchy level name
-
dataset
- Date stamp
- 2022-02-28
- Metadata standard name
-
ISO 19115 Geographic Information - Metadata
- Metadata standard version
-
ISO 19115:2003(E)
- Metadata author
-
Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre Point of contact
)))
