BEDMAP ice-thickness database

The BEDMAP (Bed Topography of the Antarctic) database contains data collected on surveys over the past 50 years that describe the thickness of the Antarctic ice sheet. This has allowed the compilation of a suite of seamless digital topographic models for the Antarctic continent and surrounding ocean. The suite includes grids representing:

- ice-sheet ... thickness over the ice sheet and shelves,

- water-column thickness beneath the floating ice shelves,

- bed elevation beneath the grounded ice sheet,

- bathymetry to 60 degrees South including the areas beneath the ice shelves.

These grids are consistent with a recent high-resolution surface elevation model of Antarctica. While the digital models have a nominal spatial resolution of 5 km, such high resolution is not strictly justified by the original data density over all parts of the ice sheet. The suite does however provide an unparalleled vision of the geosphere beneath the ice sheet and a more reliable basis for ice sheet modelling. The bed elevation DEM, which includes the entire geosphere south of 60 degrees South, provides an improved delineation of the boundary between East and West Antarctica and sheds new light on the morphology of the contiguous East Antarctic landmass, much of which is buried below an average of 2500 m of ice.

Alternate title: Polar Data Centre (PDC) record GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/00252

Date (Publication): 2022-03-22

Citation identifier: http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/dms/metadata.php?id= / GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/00252

Point of contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
British Antarctic Survey		pdc@bas.ac.uk	Custodian
British Antarctic Survey	Lythe, M.B., Vaughan, D.G. and the BEDMAP Consortium	pdc@bas.ac.uk	Originator

Maintenance and update frequency: Unknown

Keywords

NDGO0001

NERC OAI Harvesting

NERC_DDC

GCMD Parameter Valids

EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Glaciers/Ice Sheets > Glacier Elevation/Ice Sheet Elevation
EARTH SCIENCE > Cryosphere > Snow/Ice > Ice Depth/Thickness
EARTH SCIENCE > Land Surface > Topography

INSPIRE themes

Elevation
Land cover

BAS Free-text keywords

BEDMAP
Bathymetry
Bed Elevation
Ice Thickness
Water Column Thickness

Use limitation: The following protocols were generally agreed by the participants of the BEDMAP consortium as providing adequate safeguards for data-collectors, whilst allowing other BEDMAP partners and, eventually, the wider community the opportunity to use BEDMAP data for research purposes. The guidelines adopted would be broadly similar to those adopted by the ADMAP consortium for magnetic anomaly data (ADMAP, 1995) -

1. At least until the next BEDMAP workshop any data deposited with the BEDMAP data managers would be considered to be for the sole use of BEDMAP and would not be released to any third party for other purposes.

2. All gridded datasets and contour maps produced by BEDMAP will be freely available to all bone fide researchers

3. Certain restrictions will apply for access to the individual measurements of ice thickness deposited with BEDMAP. For 3 years after collection data are considered to be the sole property of the originators. For the subsequent 3 years the data will be made available for use by other BEDMAP researchers, provided that this transfer is considered as a collaboration between the originator and recipient, and authorship of resulting publications should acknowledge that collaboration.

4. For existing datasets the same restrictions will apply but with the date of publication of this report being considered as the beginning of the process.

5. A companion paper will be prepared as an accompaniment to the final bed elevation map. This will be published with an authorship reflecting the entire BEDMAP consortium.

6. The copyright of the final product of BEDMAP will be vested with SCAR.

Access constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: The following protocols were generally agreed by the participants of the BEDMAP consortium as providing adequate safeguards for data-collectors, whilst allowing other BEDMAP partners and, eventually, the wider community the opportunity to use BEDMAP data for research purposes. The guidelines adopted would be broadly similar to those adopted by the ADMAP consortium for magnetic anomaly data (ADMAP, 1995) -

1. At least until the next BEDMAP workshop any data deposited with the BEDMAP data managers would be considered to be for the sole use of BEDMAP and would not be released to any third party for other purposes.

2. All gridded datasets and contour maps produced by BEDMAP will be freely available to all bone fide researchers

3. Certain restrictions will apply for access to the individual measurements of ice thickness deposited with BEDMAP. For 3 years after collection data are considered to be the sole property of the originators. For the subsequent 3 years the data will be made available for use by other BEDMAP researchers, provided that this transfer is considered as a collaboration between the originator and recipient, and authorship of resulting publications should acknowledge that collaboration.

4. For existing datasets the same restrictions will apply but with the date of publication of this report being considered as the beginning of the process.

5. A companion paper will be prepared as an accompaniment to the final bed elevation map. This will be published with an authorship reflecting the entire BEDMAP consortium.

6. The copyright of the final product of BEDMAP will be vested with SCAR.

Language: English

Topic category

Elevation
Geoscientific information
Inland waters

Begin date: 1951-01-01

End date: unknown

Reference system identifier: OGP / urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::4326

Distribution format

Distributor contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
Polar Data Centre - British Antarctic Survey		pdc@bas.ac.uk	Distributor

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
http		GET DATA

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
http		GET DATA

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Domain consistency

Measure identification: INSPIRE / Conformity_001

Conformance result

Title: INSPIRE Data Specification on unknown theme Guidelines

Date

Explanation: See the referenced specification

Pass: No

Statement: While the digital models have a nominal spatial resolution of 5 km, such high resolution is not strictly justified by the original data density over all parts of the ice sheet.