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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Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/254792 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1187-2020 |
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ftunivlouvain:oai:dial.uclouvain.be:boreal:254792 2024-05-12T07:53:55+00:00 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. UCL - SST/ELI/ELIC - Earth & Climate 2020 http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/254792 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1187-2020 eng eng Copernicus GmbH info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/BRAIN-be// boreal:254792 http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/254792 doi:10.5194/tc-14-1187-2020 urn:EISSN:1994-0424 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess The Cryosphere, Vol. 14, no.4, p. 1187-1207 (2020) Earth-Surface Processes Water Science and Technology info:eu-repo/semantics/article 2020 ftunivlouvain https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1187-2020 2024-04-17T16:36:25Z 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 δ18O. This suggests that SMB data can be used to reconstruct past surface air temperature. Using this finding, we assimilate isotope-enabled SMB and δ18O 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 δ18O 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. © 2020 Author(s). Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica East Antarctica ice core Ice Sheet The Cryosphere West Antarctica DIAL@UCLouvain (Université catholique de Louvain) Antarctic The Antarctic East Antarctica West Antarctica The Cryosphere 14 4 1187 1207 |
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Open Polar |
collection |
DIAL@UCLouvain (Université catholique de Louvain) |
op_collection_id |
ftunivlouvain |
language |
English |
topic |
Earth-Surface Processes Water Science and Technology |
spellingShingle |
Earth-Surface Processes Water Science and Technology 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 |
topic_facet |
Earth-Surface Processes Water Science and Technology |
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 δ18O. This suggests that SMB data can be used to reconstruct past surface air temperature. Using this finding, we assimilate isotope-enabled SMB and δ18O 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 δ18O 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. © 2020 Author(s). |
author2 |
UCL - SST/ELI/ELIC - Earth & Climate |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Dalaiden, Quentin Goosse, Hugues Klein, François Lenaerts, Jan T. M. Holloway, Max Sime, Louise Thomas, Elizabeth R. |
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 |
publisher |
Copernicus GmbH |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/254792 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-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 The Cryosphere West Antarctica |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica East Antarctica ice core Ice Sheet The Cryosphere West Antarctica |
op_source |
The Cryosphere, Vol. 14, no.4, p. 1187-1207 (2020) |
op_relation |
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/BRAIN-be// boreal:254792 http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/254792 doi:10.5194/tc-14-1187-2020 urn:EISSN:1994-0424 |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-1187-2020 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
14 |
container_issue |
4 |
container_start_page |
1187 |
op_container_end_page |
1207 |
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1798845575768047616 |