Insignificant Change in Antarctic Snowfall Since the International Geophysical Year

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...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science
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: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2006
Subjects:
Multidisciplinary
Antarctic
Antarc*
Antarctica
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1128243
https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.1128243
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Summary: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.

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