Annals of Glaciology 44 2006 429 Covariation of sea ice and methanesulphonic acid in

• Main Authors: Wilhelm Ii L, East Antarctica, Annette F. M. Foster, Mark A. J. Curran, Barbara T. Smith, Tas D. Van Ommen, Vin I. Morgan
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antarctic; East Antarctica; Law Dome; Mount Brown; Wilhelm II Land; Antarc*; Antarctica; ice core; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.430.1275; http://www.igsoc.org/annals/44/a44a010.pdf

ABSTRACT. Sea ice plays an important role in ocean–atmosphere heat exchange, global albedo and the marine ecosystem. Knowledge of variation in sea-ice extent is essential in order to understand past climates, and to model possible future climate scenarios. This paper presents results from a short firn core spanning 15 years collected from near Mount Brown, Wilhelm II Land, East Antarctica. Variations of methanesulphonic acid (MSA) at Mount Brown were positively correlated with sea-ice extent from the coastal region surrounding Mount Brown (60–1208 E) and from around the entire Antarctic coast (0–3608 E). Previous results from Law Dome identified this MSA–sea-ice relationship and proposed it as an Antarctic sea-ice proxy (Curran and others, 2003), with the strongest results found for the local Law Dome region. Our data provide supporting evidence for the Law Dome proxy (at another site in East Antarctica), but a deeper Mount Brown ice core is required to confirm the sea-ice decline suggested by Curran and others (2003). Results also indicate that this deeper record may also provide a more circum-Antarctic sea-ice proxy.