DOI: 10.13127/ires
title: IRES Italian Radio Echo Sounding
title: Radio Eco Sondaggi Italiani
title: IRES

description: IRES: Italian Radio Echo Sounding (RES)  is a data repository of radar data and GIS, Geographic Information System database containing RES data from radar glaciology, flight routes and ground measurements carried out since 1995 on Antarctic and Alpine glaciers which allows to view and download the acquired data.
description: IRES: Italian Radio Echo Sounding è un archivio dati radar e GIS,  contenente i dati RES di radio glaciologia, i percorsi dei voli e le misure da terra effettuati dal 1995 ad oggi sui ghiacciai Antartici e Alpini dal gruppo italiano di "Radioglaciologia". Dal database è possibile ottenere informazioni sulle misure e metodologie usate, visualizzare e scaricare dati.
description: Through the RES measurements of the glaciological radar it is possible to explore, with the use of a radar signal, the interior of glaciers, ice caps, ice shelves and subglacial lakes allowing to determine the thickness of the ice, the internal layers and the physical conditions of ice bedrock interface. These data were collected and sorted within a radioglaciology database containing all the information relating to the measurements carried out up to now by the Italian radarglaciological group. Radar data was collected by aircraft, helicopter and on the ground (sled and snowmobile). The database also contains all the main information on the measurement campaign such as year, mission, flight, radar paths, acquisition direction and positions.
description: Since 1997, the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) in Italy has been involved in the development of the airborne RES system named Glacio RADAR, which is under continuous upgradated. The trasmitted frequencies ranges ftom 16 to 150 MHz, with pulse  lengths from 10 ns to 1 us. The Glacio RADAR was mounted on an aircraft DE HAVILLAND DHC-6 Twin Otter that flies at an optimum altitude 1000 ft (around 300m) above the ice surface during the survey in Antarctic regions. During several Italian Antarctic Expeditions (1995, 1997, 1999, 2001 and 2003) a large amount of data was collected, with more than 60’000 km of flights in the eastern part of Antarctica and around the Italian base Mario Zucchelli station and Italian-French base station Dome C.
description: Due to its physical properties, ice is transparent to electromagnetic signals (light and radio waves). Radio waves can pass through kilometers of ice without undergoing great attenuations and this allows us to "see" inside the glaciers using radar techniques. The operating principle of RADAR is based on the calculation of the distance traveled by a radio pulse. The pulse emitted by the radar travels through space with a certain speed. When it encounters an object in its path it is reflected and returns, in part, to the radar. The measurement of the elapsed time between the emission and the reception of the impulse allows to calculate the distance between the radar and the reflecting object. On ice caps and glaciers this technique is used by pointing the transmitting antenna downwards, and the received radar signal contains information about the position of the ice surface range of its inner layers and the position of the bedrock of the glacier.