Constraining the Englacial and Basal Thermal State Beneath the Dome Fuji Region, East Antarctica Using Airborne Radar Sounding Data

Ice cores provide critical information for understanding the processes involved in the climate history of the Earth. However, much of the oldest ice in Antarctica lies at the bottom of an ice sheet, thousands of meters thick. This makes direct observation of basal ice via core extraction a challenging and costly operation. Before drilling cores in remote areas of Antarctica, it is essential to select a location where the ice is directly in contact with frozen bed and to avoid locations where the basal ice has melted or been significantly altered. To aid in this reconnaissance, we use data from an AWI airborne radar survey, performed within the project Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice, over the Dome Fuji region of Antarctica. We combine radiometric analysis of bed echoes strength with layer-based englacial attenuation estimates to constrain the thermal state of the bed and ice column. We compare this to thermal state estimates from ice sheet models. Finally, we interpret these results in the context of favorable and averse locations for drilling.