The new aerial radar penetrating the icy depths of China’s glaciers

Airborne technology is helping to map the terrain and water reserves in the Qilian Mountains

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The aerial survey covered the Laohugou No 12 glacier in the Qilian Mountains. Photo: Reuters

Published: 7:00pm, 22 Dec 2024

Chinese researchers have penetrated the icy depths of glaciers in the country’s northwest, using new aerial technology to take a more detailed picture of resources in the “water tower of Asia”.

The team from the Aerospace Information Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences used airborne ice radar, also known as ice-penetrating radar, to map the topography, thickness and volume of various valley glaciers in the Qilian Mountains in Gansu province.

The area is part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the world’s highest and a source of water for more than 2 billion people.

“[The project] realised the measurement of ice thickness of compound valley glaciers under complex terrain conditions for the first time,” the institute said on Friday, adding that the technology was at a world-leading level.

Mounted on remote-sensing aircraft, the radars emit electromagnetic waves that can penetrate thick layers of ice, including in glaciers. When the waves hit internal features like rocks, they are reflected and the echoes are analysed to generate maps of the terrain.

“Unlike traditional technologies that are mainly used to obtain glacier surface information, aerial ice radar has the ability to penetrate the glacier’s surface to obtain information about the interior and bottom of the glacier,” Zhu Jinbiao, deputy director of the institute’s Airborne Remote Sensing Centre, told state news agency Xinhua.

The radar gathered data to build up a digital elevation model of the Qiyi glacier. Photo: Chinese Academy of Sciences