Surface mass balance controlled by local surface slope in inland Antarctica: implications for ice-sheet mass balance and oldest ice delineation in Dome Fuji
Van Liefferinge, B.; Taylor, D.; Tsutaki, S.; Fujita, S.; Gogineni, P.; Kawamura, K.; Matsuoka, K.; Moholdt, G.; Oyabu, I.; Abe-Ouchi, A.; Awasthi, A.; Buizert, C.; Gallet, J.-C.; Isaksson, E.; Motoyama, H.; Nakazawa, F.; Ohno, H.; O'Neill, C.; Pattyn, F.; Sugiura, K. (2021). Surface mass balance controlled by local surface slope in inland Antarctica: implications for ice-sheet mass balance and oldest ice delineation in Dome Fuji. Geophys. Res. Lett. 48(24): e2021GL094966. https://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2021GL094966 In: Geophysical Research Letters. American Geophysical Union: Washington. ISSN 0094-8276; e-ISSN 1944-8007, more |   |
| Keyword | | | Author keywords | microwave radar; firn stratigraphy |
| Authors | | Top | - Van Liefferinge, B., more
- Taylor, D.
- Tsutaki, S.
- Fujita, S.
- Gogineni, P.
- Kawamura, K.
- Matsuoka, K.
| - Moholdt, G.
- Oyabu, I.
- Abe-Ouchi, A.
- Awasthi, A.
- Buizert, C.
- Gallet, J.-C.
- Isaksson, E.
| - Motoyama, H.
- Nakazawa, F.
- Ohno, H.
- O'Neill, C.
- Pattyn, F., more
- Sugiura, K.
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| Abstract | The limited number of surface mass balance (SMB) observations in the Antarctic inland hampers estimates of ice-sheet contribution to global sea level and locations with million-year-old ice. We present finely resolved SMB over the past three centuries in a low-accumulation region with significant depth hoar formation on Dome Fuji derived from ∼1,100 km of microwave radar stratigraphy dated with a firn core. The regional-mean SMB over the past 264 years is estimated to ∼22.5 ± 3.3 kg m−2 a−1, but with large local variability of up to 30%. We found that local SMB is negatively correlated with surface slope at scales of a few hundred meters, resulting in anomalous zones of low SMB which represent as much as 8–10% of the total SMB on the inland plateau if the SMB-slope relationship is more widely valid. This impact should be investigated further to improve estimates of Antarctic mass balance and sea-level contribution. |
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