Snow depths of volcanic events and accumulation rates of firn cores from the IPY traverse, Antarctica

Volcanic signatures in ice-core records provide an excellent means to date the cores and obtain information about accumulation rates. From several ice cores it is thus possible to extract a spatio-temporal accumulation pattern. We show records of electrical conductivity and sulfur from 13 firn cores...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Anschütz, Helgard, Sinisalo, A, Isaksson, Elisabeth, McConnell, Joseph R, Hamran, S E, Bisiaux, Marion M, Pasteris, Daniel R, Neumann, T A, Winther, Jan-Gunnar
Format: Dataset
Language:English
Published: PANGAEA 2011
Subjects:
International Polar Year (2007-2008)
IPY
Antarctic
East Antarctica
Antarc*
Antarctica
ice core
International Polar Year
Online Access:https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.806997
https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.806997
Description
Summary:Volcanic signatures in ice-core records provide an excellent means to date the cores and obtain information about accumulation rates. From several ice cores it is thus possible to extract a spatio-temporal accumulation pattern. We show records of electrical conductivity and sulfur from 13 firn cores from the Norwegian-USA scientific traverse during the International Polar Year 2007-2009 (IPY) through East Antarctica. Major volcanic eruptions are identified and used to assess century-scale accumulation changes. The largest changes seem to occur in the most recent decades with accumulation over the period 1963-2007/08 being up to 25% different from the long-term record. There is no clear overall trend, some sites show an increase in accumulation over the period 1963 to present while others show a decrease. Almost all of the sites above 3200 m above sea level (asl) suggest a decrease. These sites also show a significantly lower accumulation value than large-scale assessments both for the period 1963 to present and for the long-term mean at the respective drill sites. The spatial accumulation distribution is influenced mainly by elevation and distance to the ocean (continentality), as expected. Ground-penetrating radar data around the drill sites show a spatial variability within 10-20% over several tens of kilometers, indicating that our drill sites are well representative for the area around them. Our results are important for large-scale assessments of Antarctic mass balance and model validation.

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