An up-to-date quality-controlled surface mass balance data set for the 90°–180°E Antarctica sector and 1950–2005 period

• Published in: Journal of Geophysical Research
• Main Authors: Magand, Olivier, Genthon, Christian, Fily, Michel, Krinner, Gerhard, Picard, Ghislain, Frezzotti, Massimo, Ekaykin, A. A.
• Other Authors: Laboratoire de glaciologie et géophysique de l'environnement (LGGE), Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers de Grenoble (OSUG), Université Joseph Fourier - Grenoble 1 (UJF)-Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP )-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l'environnement et l'agriculture (IRSTEA)-Université Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB Université de Savoie Université de Chambéry )-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Joseph Fourier - Grenoble 1 (UJF)-Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP )-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies pour l'environnement et l'agriculture (IRSTEA)-Université Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB Université de Savoie Université de Chambéry )-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Ente per le Nuove Tecnologie, l'Energia e l'Ambiente (ENEA), Centro Ricerche Casaccia, Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI), Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Roshydromet)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2007
• Subjects: East Antarctica; data quality; surface mass balance; [SDU.STU.GL]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Glaciology; Antarc*; Antarctic; Antarctica; E. Antarctica; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://insu.hal.science/insu-00377178; https://insu.hal.science/insu-00377178/document; https://insu.hal.science/insu-00377178/file/2006JD007691.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1029/2006JD007691

International audience On the basis of thousands of surface mass balance (SMB) field measurements over the entire Antarctic ice sheet it is currently estimated that more than 2 Gt of ice accumulate each year at the surface of Antarctica. However, these estimates suffer from large uncertainties. Various problems affect Antarctic SMB measurements, in particular, limited or unwarranted spatial and temporal representativeness, measurement inaccuracy, and lack of quality control. We define quality criteria on the basis of (1) an up-to-date review and quality rating of the various SMB measurement methods and (2) essential information (location, dates of measurements, time period covered by the SMB values, and primary data sources) related to each SMB data. We apply these criteria to available SMB values from Queen Mary to Victoria lands (90°–180°E Antarctic sector) from the early 1950s to present. This results in a new set of observed SMB values for the 1950–2005 time period with strong reduction in density and coverage but also expectedly reduced inaccuracies and uncertainties compared to other compilations. The quality-controlled SMB data set also contains new results from recent field campaigns (International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition (ITASE), Russian Antarctic Expedition (RAE), and Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (ANARE) projects) which comply with the defined quality criteria. A comparative evaluation of climate model results against the quality-controlled updated SMB data set and other widely used ones illustrates that such Antarctic SMB studies are significantly affected by the quality of field SMB values used as reference.