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1. Bedmap3 updated ice bed, surface and thickness gridded datasets for Antarctica

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-04672-y  

   Pritchard, Hamish D; Fretwell, Peter T; Fremand, Alice C; Bodart, Julien A; Kirkham, James D; Aitken, Alan; Bamber, Jonathan; Bell, Robin; Bianchi, Cesidio; Bingham, Robert G; et al (December 2025, Scientific Data)

   Abstract We present Bedmap3, the latest suite of gridded products describing surface elevation, ice-thickness and the seafloor and subglacial bed elevation of the Antarctic south of 60 °S. Bedmap3 incorporates and adds to all post-1950s datasets previously used for 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. These efforts have filled notable gaps including in major mountain ranges and the deep interior of East Antarctica, along West Antarctic coastlines and on the Antarctic Peninsula. 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 the past and future evolution of the Antarctic ice sheets. 

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2. Antarctic Topographic Realizations and Geostatistical Modeling Used to Map Subglacial Lakes

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JF005420  

   MacKie, E. J.; Schroeder, D. M.; Caers, J.; Siegfried, M. R.; Scheidt, C. (March 2020, Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface)

   Antarctic subglacial lakes can play an important role in ice sheet dynamics, biology, geology, and oceanography, but it is difficult to definitively constrain their character and locations. Subglacial lake locations are related to factors including heat flux, ice surface slope, ice thickness, and bed topography, though these relationships are not fully quantified. Bed topography is particularly important for determining where water flows and accumulates, but digital elevation models of the ice sheet bed rely on interpolation and are unrealistically smooth, biasing estimates of subglacial lake location and surface area. To address this issue, we use geostatistical methods to simulate realistically rough bed topography. We use our simulated topography to predict subglacial lake distribution across the continent using a binomial logistic regression, which uses physical parameters and known lake locations to calculate the probabilities of lake occurrences. Our results suggest that topography models interpolated without appropriate geostatistics overestimate subglacial lake surface area and that total lake surface area is lower than previously predicted. We find that radar‐detected lakes are more likely to occur in the interior of East Antarctica, while altimetry‐detected (active) lakes are expected to be found in West Antarctica and near the grounding line. We observe that radar‐detected lakes have a high correlation with heat flux and ice thickness, while active lakes are associated with higher ice velocity. 

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3. Antarctic Bedmap data: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) sharing of 60 years of ice bed, surface, and thickness data

   https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-2695-2023  

   Frémand, Alice C.; Fretwell, Peter; Bodart, Julien A.; Pritchard, Hamish D.; Aitken, Alan; Bamber, Jonathan L.; Bell, Robin; Bianchi, Cesidio; Bingham, Robert G.; Blankenship, Donald D.; et al (January 2023, Earth System Science Data)

   Abstract. One of the key components of this research has been the mapping of Antarctic bed topography and ice thickness parameters that are crucial for modelling ice flow and hence for predicting future ice loss andthe ensuing sea level rise. Supported by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), the Bedmap3 Action Group aims not only to produce newgridded maps of ice thickness and bed topography for the internationalscientific community, but also to standardize and make available all thegeophysical survey data points used in producing the Bedmap griddedproducts. Here, we document the survey data used in the latest iteration,Bedmap3, incorporating and adding to all of the datasets previously used forBedmap1 and Bedmap2, including ice bed, surface and thickness point data from all Antarctic geophysical campaigns since the 1950s. More specifically,we describe the processes used to standardize and make these and futuresurveys and gridded datasets accessible under the Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) data principles. With the goals of making the gridding process reproducible and allowing scientists to re-use the data freely for their own analysis, we introduce the new SCAR Bedmap Data Portal(https://bedmap.scar.org, last access: 1 March 2023) created to provideunprecedented open access to these important datasets through a web-map interface. We believe that this data release will be a valuable asset to Antarctic research and will greatly extend the life cycle of the data heldwithin it. Data are available from the UK Polar Data Centre: https://data.bas.ac.uk (last access: 5 May 2023​​​​​​​). See the Data availability section for the complete list of datasets. 

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4. Radar Classification of the Antarctic Ice-Bed Interface: Version 2

   https://doi.org/10.18738/t8/c8ie7c  

   Young, Duncan; Young, Duncan (January 2025, Texas Data Repository)

   {"Abstract":["This classified_bed data product represents the radar bed classification shown in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2014.0297">Young et al., 2016</a>. Values of 0 represent specularity content below 20%; values of 3.3 represent specularity content above 20% and energy 1 microsecond below the bed 15 dB lower than the bed echo, and values of 6.7 represent specularity content above 20% and energy 1 microsecond below the bed 15 dB within than the bed echo. Grids for specularity content and post bed echo are also available. Data is available as COARDS-compliant netCDF-4/HDF5 grids (.grd) and GeoTiffs (.tiff), both in EPSG 3031 (Antarctic Polar Stereographic) projection.\n<p>\n<p>\nData were gridded using <a href="https://docs.generic-mapping-tools.org/6.1/gmt.html"> GMT6.1</a> and the <a href="https://github.com/sakov/nn-c">nnbathy</a> natural neighbor interpolator. Cell size was 1 km, gaussian filter distance was 5 km, and mask radius was 2 km.\n<p>\nBrowse images, with Bedmap3 (Pritchard et al., 2025) surface elevation contours and MEASURES phase derived surface velocities (Mouginot et al. 2019) are available for each dataset.\n\n<p>\n<p>\nAn interpretation of the values in the classified_bed product is that low values are rough bed, intermediate values are isotropic wet bed, and high values are anisotropic wet bed.\n\nVersion 1 includes data from the 2016 paper, including AGASEA over Thwaites Glacier (Holt et al., 2006), ATRS over West Antarctica (Peters et al., 2005), GIMBLE over Marie Byrd Land (Young et al, 2013) and parts of ICECAP over Wilkes Subglacial Basin, Dome C, Highland B and Totten Glacier. (Young et al, 2011, Young et al., 2016). We expect updates to the coverage as part of work funded by the Arête Glaciers Initiative.\n\n<p>\n<b>References</b>\n<br>\nHolt, J. W., Blankenship, D. D., Morse, D. L., Young, D. A., Peters, M. E., Kempf, S. D., Richter, T. G., Vaughan, D. G., and Corr, H., New boundary conditions for the West Antarctic ice sheet: subglacial topography of the Thwaites and Smith Glacier catchments, 2006, Geophysical Research Letters, 33 (L09502), pp., https://doi.org/10.1029/2005GL025561\n<br>\nMouginot, J., Rignot, E., and Scheuchl, B., Continent-wide, interferometric SAR phase, mapping of Antarctic ice velocity, 2019, Geophysical Research Letters, 46(16), pp.9710-9718, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL083826\n<br>\nPeters, M. E., Blankenship, D. D., and Morse, D. L., Analysis techniques for coherent airborne radar sounding: Application to West Antarctic ice streams, 2005 ,Journal of Geophysical Research, 110(B06303), pp.,https://doi.org/10.1029/2004JB003222\n<br>\nPritchard, H. D., and others.,Bedmap3 updated ice bed, surface and thickness gridded datasets for Antarctica,2025,Scientific Data,12(1), pp.414,https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-04672-y\n<br>\nYoung, D. A., D. D. Blankenship, J. S. Greenbaum, E. Quartini, G. L. Muldoon, F. Habbal, L. E. Lindzey, C. A. Greene, E. M. Powell, G. C. Ng, T. G. Richter, G. Echeverry, and S. Kempf, 2024, Geophysical Investigations of Marie Byrd Land Lithospheric Evolution (GIMBLE) Airborne VHF Radar Transects: 2012/2013 and 2014/2015, https://doi.org/10.18738/T8/BMXUHX, Texas Data Repository\n<br>\nYoung, D. A., Wright, A. P., Roberts, J. L., Warner, R. C., Young, N. W., Greenbaum, J. S., Schroeder, D. M., Holt, J. W., Sugden, D. E., Blankenship, D. D., van Ommen, T. D., and Siegert, M. J.,A dynamic early East Antarctic Ice Sheet suggested by ice covered fjord landscapes, 2011, Nature, 474, pp.72-75, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10114\n<br>\nYoung, D. A., Schroeder, D. M., Blankenship, D. D., Kempf, S. D., and Quartini, E.,The distribution of basal water between Antarctic subglacial lakes from radar sounding,2016,Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 374 (20140297), pp.1-21, https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2014.0297\n\n<p>\n<b>Change Log</b>\n<br>\nChanges from V1: changes to gridding parameters to more closely match the figures from Young 2016; updated metadata gridding description"]} 

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5. Total isostatic response to the complete unloading of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-15440-y  

   Paxman, Guy J. G.; Austermann, Jacqueline; Hollyday, Andrew (July 2022, Scientific Reports)

   Abstract The land surface beneath the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets is isostatically suppressed by the mass of the overlying ice. Accurate computation of the land elevation in the absence of ice is important when considering, for example, regional geodynamics, geomorphology, and ice sheet behaviour. Here, we use contemporary compilations of ice thickness and lithospheric effective elastic thickness to calculate the fully re-equilibrated isostatic response of the solid Earth to the complete removal of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets. We use an elastic plate flexure model to compute the isostatic response to the unloading of the modern ice sheet loads, and a self-gravitating viscoelastic Earth model to make an adjustment for the remaining isostatic disequilibrium driven by ice mass loss since the Last Glacial Maximum. Feedbacks arising from water loading in areas situated below sea level after ice sheet removal are also taken into account. In addition, we quantify the uncertainties in the total isostatic response associated with a range of elastic and viscoelastic Earth properties. We find that the maximum change in bed elevation following full re-equilibration occurs over the centre of the landmasses and is +783 m in Greenland and +936 m in Antarctica. By contrast, areas around the ice margins experience up to 123 m of lowering due to a combination of sea level rise, peripheral bulge collapse, and water loading. The computed isostatic response fields are openly accessible and have a number of applications for studying regional geodynamics, landscape evolution, cryosphere dynamics, and relative sea level change. 

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