IEEE Distinguished Speaker

The Radarsat Antarctic Mapping Project (RAMP) is now complete with the successful delivery of a voluminous data set to the science community. In this talk, I will review RAMP and present a summary of the various data products and their scientific implications including ice sheet surface velocity measurements that illustrate how the ice sheet is changing. I will go on to discuss new technologies motivated by RAMP that are designed to eventually image the ice sheet bed. I will conclude with a discussion of how the RAMP experience is inspiring us to move towards sustained observations of the polar regions through the cooperation of all space-faring countries.

More information can be found at:
http://bprc.osu.edu/rsl/

Kenneth C. Jezek received the B.S. degree in Physics from the University of Illinois in 1973 and went on to receive M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Geophysics from the University of Wisconsin , Madison where he studied the behavior of the Ross Ice Shelf Antarctica using ice sounding radar data collected during several visits to the Antarctic. Before joining Ohio State University ’s Byrd Polar Research Center , Dr. Jezek was a geophysicist with the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory. There, he researched the electromagnetic and acoustical properties of sea ice in the lab and in the Arctic . He also served a two-year period as manager of NASA’s polar oceans and ice sheets program. Dr. Jezek was the Principal Investigator on the RADARSAT-1 Antarctic Mapping Project from 1997-2007. In June 2000, the RAMP team was the recipient of a NASA Group Achievement Award for its comprehensive study of the Antarctic continent.