gauge measurements

• Main Authors: Shelley L. Knuth, Gregory J. Tripoli, Jonathan E. Thom, George A. Weidner, Charles R. Stearns
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antarctic; Ross Ice Shelf; Antarc*; Ice Shelf
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.483.91; http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2007/1047/ea/of2007-1047ea183.pdf

Summary Measurements of Antarctic precipitation are important to further the understanding of climate change, mass balance of ice sheets, and the global water cycle. Currently, Antarctic precipitation measurements are largely absent due to the many complexities of measuring precipitation in high latitudes. While many of these issues have yet to be overcome, measurements of snow accumulation and partitioning the causes of these changes are an important beginning. With the use of automatic weather stations and acoustic depth gauges along with visual stratigraphy and snow density observations, preliminary measurements and causes of snow depth change across the Ross Ice Shelf were taken during a period of 2003-2006. The effects of topography as well as maritime influences were also considered. A net accumulation was found at all sites, and precipitation was shown to be the primary cause of positive snow depth change. Topographical influences were found to be more significant than maritime influences.