Insignificant Change in Antarctic Snowfall since the International Geophysical Year

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 313; no. 5788; pp. 827 - 831
• Main Authors: Monaghan, Andrew J., Bromwich, David H., Fogt, Ryan L., Wang, Sheng-Hung, Mayewski, Paul A., Dixon, Daniel A., Ekaykin, Alexey, Frezzotti, Massimo, Goodwin, Ian, Isaksson, Elisabeth, Kaspari, Susan D., Morgan, Vin I., Oerter, Hans, Van Ommen, Tas D., Van der Veen, Cornelius J., Wen, Jiahong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Association for the Advancement of Science 11.08.2006; The American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subjects: Antarctic regions; Atmospheric models; Climate change; Crabs; Evolution; Geophysics; Global warming; Ice; Ice sheets; Marine; Mussels; Precipitation; Predators; Sea level; Snow; Antarctic region; PS, Antarctica
• ISSN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.1128243

Antarctic snowfall exhibits substantial variability over a range of time scales, with consequent impacts on global sea level and the mass balance of the ice sheets. To assess how snowfall has affected the thickness of the ice sheets in Antarctica and to provide an extended perspective, we derived a 50-year time series of snowfall accumulation over the continent by combining model simulations and observations primarily from ice cores. There has been no statistically significant change in snowfall since the 1950s, indicating that Antarctic precipitation is not mitigating global sea level rise as expected, despite recent winter warming of the overlying atmosphere.