Blowing snow sublimation and transport over Antarctica from 11 years of CALIPSO observations
Blowing snow processes commonly occur over the earth's ice sheets when the 10 m wind speed exceeds a threshold value. These processes play a key role in the sublimation and redistribution of snow thereby influencing the surface mass balance. Prior field studies and modeling results have shown t...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:411376f0db2e438fa4c8e8872817d524 2023-05-15T13:36:37+02:00 Blowing snow sublimation and transport over Antarctica from 11 years of CALIPSO observations S. P. Palm V. Kayetha Y. Yang R. Pauly 2017-11-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-2555-2017 https://doaj.org/article/411376f0db2e438fa4c8e8872817d524 EN eng Copernicus Publications https://www.the-cryosphere.net/11/2555/2017/tc-11-2555-2017.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0416 https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0424 doi:10.5194/tc-11-2555-2017 1994-0416 1994-0424 https://doaj.org/article/411376f0db2e438fa4c8e8872817d524 The Cryosphere, Vol 11, Pp 2555-2569 (2017) Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 article 2017 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-2555-2017 2022-12-30T21:56:15Z Blowing snow processes commonly occur over the earth's ice sheets when the 10 m wind speed exceeds a threshold value. These processes play a key role in the sublimation and redistribution of snow thereby influencing the surface mass balance. Prior field studies and modeling results have shown the importance of blowing snow sublimation and transport on the surface mass budget and hydrological cycle of high-latitude regions. For the first time, we present continent-wide estimates of blowing snow sublimation and transport over Antarctica for the period 2006–2016 based on direct observation of blowing snow events. We use an improved version of the blowing snow detection algorithm developed for previous work that uses atmospheric backscatter measurements obtained from the CALIOP (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization) lidar aboard the CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation) satellite. The blowing snow events identified by CALIPSO and meteorological fields from MERRA-2 are used to compute the blowing snow sublimation and transport rates. Our results show that maximum sublimation occurs along and slightly inland of the coastline. This is contrary to the observed maximum blowing snow frequency which occurs over the interior. The associated temperature and moisture reanalysis fields likely contribute to the spatial distribution of the maximum sublimation values. However, the spatial pattern of the sublimation rate over Antarctica is consistent with modeling studies and precipitation estimates. Overall, our results show that the 2006–2016 Antarctica average integrated blowing snow sublimation is about 393 ± 196 Gt yr −1 , which is considerably larger than previous model-derived estimates. We find maximum blowing snow transport amount of 5 Mt km −1 yr −1 over parts of East Antarctica and estimate that the average snow transport from continent to ocean is about 3.7 Gt yr −1 . These continent-wide estimates are the first of their kind and can be used to help model and constrain ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctica East Antarctica The Cryosphere Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles East Antarctica Merra ENVELOPE(12.615,12.615,65.816,65.816) The Cryosphere 11 6 2555 2569 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 |
spellingShingle |
Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 S. P. Palm V. Kayetha Y. Yang R. Pauly Blowing snow sublimation and transport over Antarctica from 11 years of CALIPSO observations |
topic_facet |
Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 |
description |
Blowing snow processes commonly occur over the earth's ice sheets when the 10 m wind speed exceeds a threshold value. These processes play a key role in the sublimation and redistribution of snow thereby influencing the surface mass balance. Prior field studies and modeling results have shown the importance of blowing snow sublimation and transport on the surface mass budget and hydrological cycle of high-latitude regions. For the first time, we present continent-wide estimates of blowing snow sublimation and transport over Antarctica for the period 2006–2016 based on direct observation of blowing snow events. We use an improved version of the blowing snow detection algorithm developed for previous work that uses atmospheric backscatter measurements obtained from the CALIOP (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization) lidar aboard the CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation) satellite. The blowing snow events identified by CALIPSO and meteorological fields from MERRA-2 are used to compute the blowing snow sublimation and transport rates. Our results show that maximum sublimation occurs along and slightly inland of the coastline. This is contrary to the observed maximum blowing snow frequency which occurs over the interior. The associated temperature and moisture reanalysis fields likely contribute to the spatial distribution of the maximum sublimation values. However, the spatial pattern of the sublimation rate over Antarctica is consistent with modeling studies and precipitation estimates. Overall, our results show that the 2006–2016 Antarctica average integrated blowing snow sublimation is about 393 ± 196 Gt yr −1 , which is considerably larger than previous model-derived estimates. We find maximum blowing snow transport amount of 5 Mt km −1 yr −1 over parts of East Antarctica and estimate that the average snow transport from continent to ocean is about 3.7 Gt yr −1 . These continent-wide estimates are the first of their kind and can be used to help model and constrain ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
S. P. Palm V. Kayetha Y. Yang R. Pauly |
author_facet |
S. P. Palm V. Kayetha Y. Yang R. Pauly |
author_sort |
S. P. Palm |
title |
Blowing snow sublimation and transport over Antarctica from 11 years of CALIPSO observations |
title_short |
Blowing snow sublimation and transport over Antarctica from 11 years of CALIPSO observations |
title_full |
Blowing snow sublimation and transport over Antarctica from 11 years of CALIPSO observations |
title_fullStr |
Blowing snow sublimation and transport over Antarctica from 11 years of CALIPSO observations |
title_full_unstemmed |
Blowing snow sublimation and transport over Antarctica from 11 years of CALIPSO observations |
title_sort |
blowing snow sublimation and transport over antarctica from 11 years of calipso observations |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-2555-2017 https://doaj.org/article/411376f0db2e438fa4c8e8872817d524 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(12.615,12.615,65.816,65.816) |
geographic |
East Antarctica Merra |
geographic_facet |
East Antarctica Merra |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctica East Antarctica The Cryosphere |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctica East Antarctica The Cryosphere |
op_source |
The Cryosphere, Vol 11, Pp 2555-2569 (2017) |
op_relation |
https://www.the-cryosphere.net/11/2555/2017/tc-11-2555-2017.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0416 https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0424 doi:10.5194/tc-11-2555-2017 1994-0416 1994-0424 https://doaj.org/article/411376f0db2e438fa4c8e8872817d524 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-2555-2017 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
11 |
container_issue |
6 |
container_start_page |
2555 |
op_container_end_page |
2569 |
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1766081764358356992 |