High variability of climate and surface mass balance induced by Antarctic ice rises

Ice rises play key roles in buttressing the neighbouring ice shelves and potentially provide palaeoclimate proxies from ice cores drilled near their divides. Little is known, however, about their influence on local climate and surface mass balance (SMB). Here we combine 12 years (2001–12) of regiona...

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Published inJournal of glaciology Vol. 60; no. 224; pp. 1101 - 1110
Main Authors Lenaerts, Jan T.M., Brown, Joel, Van Den Broeke, Michiel R., Matsuoka, Kenichi, Drews, Reinhard, Callens, Denis, Philippe, Morgane, Gorodetskaya, Irina V., Van Meijgaard, Erik, Reijmer, Carleen H., Pattyn, Frank, Van Lipzig, Nicole P.M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.01.2014
International Glaciological Society
Subjects
Earth, ocean, space
Exact sciences and technology
External geophysics
Snow. Ice. Glaciers
polar regions
Antarctica
wind-blown snow
ice rise
Antarctic glaciology
accumulation
surface mass budget
mass balance
Atmosphere model
Blowing snow
Regional scope
topography
Model output
digital elevation models
climate variability
Drifting snow
Climate models
ice sheets
Ice shelf
Glacier balance
Observation data
Polar region
high resolution
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Summary:Ice rises play key roles in buttressing the neighbouring ice shelves and potentially provide palaeoclimate proxies from ice cores drilled near their divides. Little is known, however, about their influence on local climate and surface mass balance (SMB). Here we combine 12 years (2001–12) of regional atmospheric climate model (RACMO2) output at high horizontal resolution (5.5 km) with recent observations from weather stations, ground-penetrating radar and firn cores in coastal Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica, to describe climate and SMB variations around ice rises. We demonstrate strong spatial variability of climate and SMB in the vicinity of ice rises, in contrast to flat ice shelves, where they are relatively homogeneous. Despite their higher elevation, ice rises are characterized by higher winter temperatures compared with the flat ice shelf. Ice rises strongly influence SMB patterns, mainly through orographic uplift of moist air on the upwind slopes. Besides precipitation, drifting snow contributes significantly to the ice-rise SMB. The findings reported here may aid in selecting a representative location for ice coring on ice rises, and allow better constraint of local ice-rise as well as regional ice-shelf mass balance.
ISSN:0022-1430
1727-5652
DOI:10.3189/2014JoG14J040