Seen is an aircraft equipped with ice-penetrating radars on wings. The Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI) said Tuesday that it succeeded in exploring glacier in Antarctica with the radars developed by its researchers. Courtesy of KOPRI

Korea successfully explored a 3,500-meter thick glacier in Antarctica using a radar system developed by domestic technicians as part of its efforts to foster research capabilities on responding to climate change, the Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI) said Tuesday.

The research team, led by KOPRI scientist Lee Joo-han, who also serves as director of the institution's department of future technology convergence, explored the Dome C area in Antarctica at the end of last year with a deep ice-penetrating radar developed in collaboration with the University of Alabama of the United States.

The Dome C area is one of the places with the thickest glaciers in Antarctica, about 1,300 kilometers away from the Jang Bogo Station, one of Korea's Antarctic bases.

KOPRI said this exploration was conducted to build the technological capability to respond to climate change in Korea. Through the radar technology, the research team obtained visual data not only about the layers of glaciers but also about the structure of the Antarctic continent under the glacier and the presence or absence of a subglacial lake through the exploration, KOPRI added.

"The Antarctic ice is the most densely recorded source of ancient climate on Earth," Lee said. "With the success of this glacier radar exploration, the nation has smoothly embarked on a special journey to respond to climate change."

The institute said that the ice-penetrating radar was developed to be attached to a light aircraft, and the range of exploration is 1,500 kilometers, more than six times that of a radar attached to a helicopter.

"The total exploration distance was 2,800 kilometers, and the average thickness of the glacier confirmed by the radar was 3,000 meters," KOPRI said.

KOPRI said that this radar, which took four years to develop since 2018, can perform detailed analysis up to depths of 4,000 meters.

The research team plans to continue exploring to choose candidate sites for deep ice core drilling over the next three years.

"Deep ice cores exist at depths of at least 1,000 meters, and extracting this old ice through deep ice core drilling is a long-term project that takes more than 10 years. The precise location selection is a decisive factor in the success or failure of the project, and radar exploration is an essential task to increase the success rate before drilling," KOPRI said.

In addition to carrying out radar exploration on glaciers, KORI is also on course to build an inland scientific research base in Antarctica by 2032.