How useful is snow accumulation in reconstructing surface air temperature in Antarctica? A study combining ice core records and climate models
Improving our knowledge of the temporal and spatial variability of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) surface mass balance (SMB) is crucial to reduce the uncertainties of past, present, and future Antarctic contributions to sea level rise. An examination of the surface air temperature–SMB relationship in...
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ftcopernicus:oai:publications.copernicus.org:tc76550 2023-05-15T13:55:28+02:00 How useful is snow accumulation in reconstructing surface air temperature in Antarctica? A study combining ice core records and climate models Dalaiden, Quentin Goosse, Hugues Klein, François Lenaerts, Jan T. M. Holloway, Max Sime, Louise Thomas, Elizabeth R. 2020-04-08 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1187-2020 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/1187/2020/ eng eng doi:10.5194/tc-14-1187-2020 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/1187/2020/ eISSN: 1994-0424 Text 2020 ftcopernicus https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1187-2020 2020-07-20T16:22:17Z Improving our knowledge of the temporal and spatial variability of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) surface mass balance (SMB) is crucial to reduce the uncertainties of past, present, and future Antarctic contributions to sea level rise. An examination of the surface air temperature–SMB relationship in model simulations demonstrates a strong link between the two. Reconstructions based on ice cores display a weaker relationship, indicating a model–data discrepancy that may be due to model biases or to the non-climatic noise present in the records. We find that, on the regional scale, the modeled relationship between surface air temperature and SMB is often stronger than between temperature and δ 18 O . This suggests that SMB data can be used to reconstruct past surface air temperature. Using this finding, we assimilate isotope-enabled SMB and δ 18 O model output with ice core observations to generate a new surface air temperature reconstruction. Although an independent evaluation of the skill is difficult because of the short observational time series, this new reconstruction outperforms the previous reconstructions for the continental-mean temperature that were based on δ 18 O alone. The improvement is most significant for the East Antarctic region, where the uncertainties are particularly large. Finally, using the same data assimilation method as for the surface air temperature reconstruction, we provide a spatial SMB reconstruction for the AIS over the last 2 centuries, showing large variability in SMB trends at a regional scale, with an increase (0.82 Gt yr −2 ) in West Antarctica over 1957–2000 and a decrease in East Antarctica during the same period ( −0.13 Gt yr −2 ). As expected, this is consistent with the recent reconstruction used as a constraint in the data assimilation. Text Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica East Antarctica ice core Ice Sheet West Antarctica Copernicus Publications: E-Journals Antarctic The Antarctic East Antarctica West Antarctica The Cryosphere 14 4 1187 1207 |
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Copernicus Publications: E-Journals |
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ftcopernicus |
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English |
description |
Improving our knowledge of the temporal and spatial variability of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) surface mass balance (SMB) is crucial to reduce the uncertainties of past, present, and future Antarctic contributions to sea level rise. An examination of the surface air temperature–SMB relationship in model simulations demonstrates a strong link between the two. Reconstructions based on ice cores display a weaker relationship, indicating a model–data discrepancy that may be due to model biases or to the non-climatic noise present in the records. We find that, on the regional scale, the modeled relationship between surface air temperature and SMB is often stronger than between temperature and δ 18 O . This suggests that SMB data can be used to reconstruct past surface air temperature. Using this finding, we assimilate isotope-enabled SMB and δ 18 O model output with ice core observations to generate a new surface air temperature reconstruction. Although an independent evaluation of the skill is difficult because of the short observational time series, this new reconstruction outperforms the previous reconstructions for the continental-mean temperature that were based on δ 18 O alone. The improvement is most significant for the East Antarctic region, where the uncertainties are particularly large. Finally, using the same data assimilation method as for the surface air temperature reconstruction, we provide a spatial SMB reconstruction for the AIS over the last 2 centuries, showing large variability in SMB trends at a regional scale, with an increase (0.82 Gt yr −2 ) in West Antarctica over 1957–2000 and a decrease in East Antarctica during the same period ( −0.13 Gt yr −2 ). As expected, this is consistent with the recent reconstruction used as a constraint in the data assimilation. |
format |
Text |
author |
Dalaiden, Quentin Goosse, Hugues Klein, François Lenaerts, Jan T. M. Holloway, Max Sime, Louise Thomas, Elizabeth R. |
spellingShingle |
Dalaiden, Quentin Goosse, Hugues Klein, François Lenaerts, Jan T. M. Holloway, Max Sime, Louise Thomas, Elizabeth R. How useful is snow accumulation in reconstructing surface air temperature in Antarctica? A study combining ice core records and climate models |
author_facet |
Dalaiden, Quentin Goosse, Hugues Klein, François Lenaerts, Jan T. M. Holloway, Max Sime, Louise Thomas, Elizabeth R. |
author_sort |
Dalaiden, Quentin |
title |
How useful is snow accumulation in reconstructing surface air temperature in Antarctica? A study combining ice core records and climate models |
title_short |
How useful is snow accumulation in reconstructing surface air temperature in Antarctica? A study combining ice core records and climate models |
title_full |
How useful is snow accumulation in reconstructing surface air temperature in Antarctica? A study combining ice core records and climate models |
title_fullStr |
How useful is snow accumulation in reconstructing surface air temperature in Antarctica? A study combining ice core records and climate models |
title_full_unstemmed |
How useful is snow accumulation in reconstructing surface air temperature in Antarctica? A study combining ice core records and climate models |
title_sort |
how useful is snow accumulation in reconstructing surface air temperature in antarctica? a study combining ice core records and climate models |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1187-2020 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/1187/2020/ |
geographic |
Antarctic The Antarctic East Antarctica West Antarctica |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic The Antarctic East Antarctica West Antarctica |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica East Antarctica ice core Ice Sheet West Antarctica |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica East Antarctica ice core Ice Sheet West Antarctica |
op_source |
eISSN: 1994-0424 |
op_relation |
doi:10.5194/tc-14-1187-2020 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/1187/2020/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1187-2020 |
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The Cryosphere |
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14 |
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4 |
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1187 |
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1207 |
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1766262092565839872 |