Bedmap

Bedmap is a collaborative community project with the aim to produce a new map and datasets of Antarctic ice thickness and bed topography for the international glaciology and geophysical community, using a variety of data (including ice-thickness, bathymetry, surface altitude and grounding lines).

The Bedmap Portal (bedmap.scar.org) provides a direct access to the ice thickness, bed and surface elevation datasets. An associated Geophysics Book gives the list of data available and provides interactive codes to help you use the data with Python.

The Bedmap portal

For more information:

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

1. 60 years of Antarctic ice sheet data released

   In a significant milestone for Antarctic research, detailed and extensive information on ice thickness and bed topography is now available for the first time in a centralised and standardised format. […]

   Read more of: 60 years of Antarctic ice sheet data released

   

All the data are now published at the UK Polar Data Centre.

Standardised CSV:

• Bedmap1: metadata – data
• Bedmap2:metadata – data
• Bedmap3: metadata – data

Standardised shapefiles and geopackages – Lines and statistically-summarised data points:

• Bedmap1: metadata – data
• Bedmap2:metadata – data
• Bedmap3:metadata – data

Gridding products:

• Bedmap1: metadata – data
• Bedmap2: metadata – data
• Bedmap3: metadata – data

1. Airborne Geophysics

   Enabling ice observation programmes

   Read more of: Airborne Geophysics

   

2. Polarimetric Radar

   The radar system is composed of a complex waveform generator, signal processor, data handler and data store.

   Read more of: Polarimetric Radar