Climatic signals from 76 shallow firn cores in Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica

• Published in: The Cryosphere
• Main Authors: S. Altnau, E. Schlosser, E. Isaksson, D. Divine
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2015
• Subjects: Environmental sciences; GE1-350; Geology; QE1-996.5; East Antarctica; Dronning Maud Land; Neumayer; Neumayer Station; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Shelf; The Cryosphere
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-9-925-2015; https://doaj.org/article/3bc6e074a1894d8681b360c81d4683bd

The spatial and temporal distribution of surface mass balance (SMB) and δ 18 O were investigated in the first comprehensive study of a set of 76 firn cores retrieved by various expeditions during the past 3 decades in Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica. The large number of cores was used to calculate stacked records of SMB and δ 18 O, which considerably increased the signal-to-noise ratio compared to earlier studies and facilitated the detection of climatic signals. Considerable differences between cores from the interior plateau and the coastal cores were found. The δ 18 O of both the plateau and the ice shelf cores exhibit a slight positive trend over the second half of the 20th century. In the corresponding period, the SMB has a negative trend in the ice shelf cores, but increases on the plateau. Comparison with meteorological data from Neumayer Station revealed that for the ice shelf regions, atmospheric dynamic effects are more important than thermodynamics while on the plateau; the temporal variations of SMB and δ 18 O occur mostly in parallel, and thus can be explained by thermodynamic effects. The Southern Annular Mode (SAM) has exhibited a positive trend since the mid-1960s, which is assumed to lead to a cooling of East Antarctica. This is not confirmed by the firn core data in our data set. Changes in the atmospheric circulation that result in a changed seasonal distribution of precipitation/accumulation could partly explain the observed features in the ice shelf cores.