GPR inversion and modelling for glacial internal debris estimation and characterization

We performed GPR modelling and inversion in order to estimate the debris content within the ice of mountain glaciers. Having established that the high scattered zone identified within the ice was due to a mix of ice and debris, we focused on the evaluation of the parameters that influence the scattering energy, considering the dimensions and the amount of scatterers as the main variables to the 2D simulations. After randomizing the scatterers distribution and validating the stability of the approach with forward modelling, we performed field data inversions with the aim of minimizing the scattered energy difference between field and synthetic data. We found that even a low percentage of debris may be responsible for the high scattered zones imaged in GPR dataset collected on mountain glaciers.