Abstract: The authors present an electromagnetic(EM) technique which can efficiently measure the sea ice thickness. Due to the rather large resisitivity contrast between sea ice and water, EM method can readily determine the distance between EM antenna and ice/water interface. And after subtracting the height of EM antenna from sea ice surface, the sea ice thickness can be estimated. A formula to estimate the apparent conductivity and sea ice thickness has been obtained after the correlation analysis of the EM apparent conductivity and drill-hole data. The sea ice thickness estimated by the formula agrees well with drill data. Application of the method to an Antarctic test shows that the level ice distribution in the Antarctic Neila Fjord ranges from 0.8 m to 1.4 m in the summer of 2005-2006.

Key words: Antarctic, electromagnetic induction, apparent conductivity, sea ice thickness, drill-hole measurement