Snow on Antarctic sea ice

• Main Authors: Massom, R. A., Eicken, H., Haas, Christian, Jeffries, M. O., Drinkwater, M. R., Sturm, M., Worby, A. P., Wu, X., Lytle, V. I., Ushio, S., Morris, K., Reid, P. A., Warren, S., Allison, I.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2001
• Subjects: Antarctic; Arctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/4436/; https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/4436/1/Mas2001a.pdf; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.15011; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.15011.d001

Snow on Antarctic sea ice plays a complex and highly variable role in air-sea-ice interaction processes and the global climate system. This paper presents snow data collected during the past ten years, and reviews major findings. These include: differences in regional and seasonal snow properties and thicknesses; the unique consequences of snow on Antarctic pack ice relative to the Arctic (e.g. the importance of flooding and snow-ice formation); the potential impact if global change increases snowfall; lower observed values of snow thermal conductivity than those used in models; periodic large-scale melt in winter; and the contrast in summer melt in the Antarctic and Arctic. The new findings have significant implications for modelling and remote-sensing studies. Different snow properties from Arctic conditions are recommended for use in Antarctic models; similar differences could affect the interpretation of remote-sensing data over sea ice.