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1. Near-Surface Air Temperature Records over the Past 30 Years in the Interior of Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica

   https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-23-0092.1  

   Kurita, Naoyuki ; Kameda, Takao ; Motoyama, Hideaki ; Hirasawa, Naohiko ; Mikolajczyk, David ; Welhouse, Lee J. ; Keller, Linda M. ; Weidner, George A. ; Lazzara, Matthew A. ( February 2024 , Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology)

   The interior of Dronning Maud Land (DML) in East Antarctica is one of the most data-sparse regions of Antarctica for studying climate change. A monthly mean near-surface temperature dataset for the last 30 years has been compiled from the historical records from automatic weather stations (AWSs) at three sites in the region (Mizuho, Relay Station, and Dome Fuji). Multiple AWSs have been installed along the route to Dome Fuji since the 1990s, and observations have continued to the present day. The use of passive-ventilated radiation shields for the temperature sensors at the AWSs may have caused a warm bias in the temperature measurements, however, due to insufficient ventilation in the summer, when solar radiation is high and winds are low. In this study, these warm biases are quantified by comparison with temperature measurements with an aspirated shield and subsequently removed using a regression model. Systematic error resulting from changes in the sensor height due to accumulating snow was insignificant in our study area. Several other systematic errors occurring in the early days of the AWS systems were identified and corrected. After the corrections, multiple AWS records were integrated to create a time series for each station. The percentage of missing data over the three decades was 21% for Relay Station and 28% for Dome Fuji. The missing rate at Mizuho was 49%, more than double that at Relay Station. These new records allow for the study of temperature variability and change in DML, where climate change has so far been largely unexplored.

   Antarctic climate change has been studied using temperature data at staffed stations. The staffed stations, however, are mainly located on the Antarctic Peninsula and in the coastal regions. Climate change is largely unknown in the Antarctic plateau, particularly in the western sector of the East Antarctic Plateau in areas such as the interior of Dronning Maud Land (DML). To fill the data gap, this study presents a new dataset of monthly mean near-surface climate data using historical observations from three automatic weather stations (AWSs). This dataset allows us to study temperature variability and change over a data-sparse region where climate change has been largely unexplored.

    

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2. Antarctic Atmospheric River Climatology and Precipitation Impacts

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JD033788  

   Wille, Jonathan D. ; Favier, Vincent ; Gorodetskaya, Irina V. ; Agosta, Cécile ; Kittel, Christoph ; Beeman, Jai Chowdhry ; Jourdain, Nicolas C. ; Lenaerts, Jan T. M. ; Codron, Francis ( April 2021 , Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres)

   The Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) is sensitive to short‐term extreme meteorological events that can leave long‐term impacts on the continent's surface mass balance (SMB). We investigate the impacts of atmospheric rivers (ARs) on the AIS precipitation budget using an AR detection algorithm and a regional climate model (Modèle Atmosphérique Régional) from 1980 to 2018. While ARs and their associated extreme vapor transport are relatively rare events over Antarctic coastal regions (∼3 days per year), they have a significant impact on the precipitation climatology. ARs are responsible for at least 10% of total accumulated snowfall across East Antarctica (localized areas reaching 20%) and a majority of extreme precipitation events. Trends in AR annual frequency since 1980 are observed across parts of AIS, most notably an increasing trend in Dronning Maud Land; however, interannual variability in AR frequency is much larger. This AR behavior appears to drive a significant portion of annual snowfall trends across East Antarctica, while controlling the interannual variability of precipitation across most of the AIS. AR landfalls are most likely when the circumpolar jet is highly amplified during blocking conditions in the Southern Ocean. There is a fingerprint of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) on AR variability in West Antarctica with SAM+ (SAM−) favoring increased AR frequency in the Antarctic Peninsula (Amundsen‐Ross Sea coastline). Given the relatively large influence ARs have on precipitation across the continent, it is advantageous for future studies of moisture transport to Antarctica to consider an AR framework especially when considering future SMB changes.

    

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3. Synoptic Drivers of Atmospheric River Induced Precipitation Near Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JD037859  

   Baiman, Rebecca ; Winters, Andrew C. ; Lenaerts, Jan ; Shields, Christine A. ( April 2023 , Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres)

   Atmospheric rivers (ARs) that reach the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) transport anomalous moisture from lower latitudes and can impact the AIS via extreme precipitation and increased downward longwave radiation. ARs contribute significantly to the interannual variability of precipitation over the AIS and thus are likely to play a key role in understanding future changes in the surface mass balance of the AIS. Dronning Maud Land (DML) is one of four maxima in AR frequency over coastal East Antarctica, with AR precipitation explaining 77% of the interannual variability in precipitation for this region. We employ a 16‐node self‐organizing map (SOM) trained with MERRA‐2 sea‐level pressure anomalies to identify synoptic‐scale environments associated with landfalling ARs in and around DML. Node composites of atmospheric variables reveal common drivers of precipitation associated with ARs reaching DML including anomalous high‐low surface pressure couplets, anomalously high integrated water vapor, and coastal barrier jets. Using a quasi‐geostrophic framework, we find that upward vertical motion associated with the occlusion process of attendant cyclones dominates atmospheric lift in AR environments. We further identify mechanisms that explain the variability in AR precipitation intensity across nodes, such as the lift associated with the occlusion process of attendant cyclones and the spatial coincidence of ascent induced by the occlusion process and frontogenesis. The latter suggests that ARs making landfall during the mature phase of cyclogenesis result in higher precipitation intensity compared to landfalling ARs that occur during the occluded phase.

    

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4. Age stratigraphy in the East Antarctic Ice Sheet inferred from radio-echo sounding horizons

   https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-11-1069-2019  

   Winter, A. and ( July 2019 , Earth system science data)

   The East Antarctic Ice Sheet contains a wealth of information that can be extracted from its internal architecture such as distribution of age, past flow features, and surface and basal properties. Airborne radar surveys can sample this stratigraphic archive across broad areas. Here, we identify and trace key horizons across several radar surveys to obtain the stratigraphic information. We transfer the age–depth scales from ice cores to intersecting radar data. We then propagate these age scales across the ice sheet using the high fidelity continuity of the radar horizons. In Dronning Maud Land, including Dome Fuji, we mapped isochrones with ages of 38 and 74 ka. In the central region of East Antarctica around Dome Concordia, Vostok and Dome Argus, we use isochrone ages of 38, 48, 90 and 161 ka. Taking together both regions, we provide isochrone depths traced along a combined profile length of more than 40 000 km and discuss uncertainties of the obtained stratigraphy, as well as factors important to consider for further expansion. This data set is the most extensive distribution of internal horizons in East Antarctica to date. The isochrone depths presented in this study are available on PANGAEA (https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.895528; Winter et al., 2018). 

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5. Expedition 382 Preliminary Report: Iceberg Alley and Subantarctic Ice and Ocean Dynamics

   https://doi.org/10.14379/iodp.pr.382.2019  

   Weber, M.E. ; Raymo, M.E. ; Peck, V.L. ; Williams, T. ( August 2019 , Preliminary report)

   null (Ed.)

   International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 382, Iceberg Alley and Subantarctic Ice and Ocean Dynamics, investigated the long-term climate history of Antarctica, seeking to understand how polar ice sheets responded to changes in insolation and atmospheric CO2 in the past and how ice sheet evolution influenced global sea level and vice versa. Five sites (U1534–U1538) were drilled east of the Drake Passage: two sites at 53.2°S at the northern edge of the Scotia Sea and three sites at 57.4°–59.4°S in the southern Scotia Sea. We recovered continuously deposited late Neogene sediment to reconstruct the past history and variability in Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) mass loss and associated changes in oceanic and atmospheric circulation. The sites from the southern Scotia Sea (Sites U1536–U1538) will be used to study the Neogene flux of icebergs through “Iceberg Alley,” the main pathway along which icebergs calved from the margin of the AIS travel as they move equatorward into the warmer waters of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC). In particular, sediments from this area will allow us to assess the magnitude of iceberg flux during key times of AIS evolution, including the following: • The middle Miocene glacial intensification of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, • The mid-Pliocene warm period, • The late Pliocene glacial expansion of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, • The mid-Pleistocene transition (MPT), and • The “warm interglacials” and glacial terminations of the last 800 ky. We will use the geochemical provenance of iceberg-rafted detritus and other glacially eroded material to determine regional sources of AIS mass loss. We will also address interhemispheric phasing of ice sheet growth and decay, study the distribution and history of land-based versus marine-based ice sheets around the continent over time, and explore the links between AIS variability and global sea level. By comparing north–south variations across the Scotia Sea between the Pirie Basin (Site U1538) and the Dove Basin (Sites U1536 and U1537), Expedition 382 will also deliver critical information on how climate changes in the Southern Ocean affect ocean circulation through the Drake Passage, meridional overturning in the region, water mass production, ocean–atmosphere CO2 transfer by wind-induced upwelling, sea ice variability, bottom water outflow from the Weddell Sea, Antarctic weathering inputs, and changes in oceanic and atmospheric fronts in the vicinity of the ACC. Comparing changes in dust proxy records between the Scotia Sea and Antarctic ice cores will also provide a detailed reconstruction of changes in the Southern Hemisphere westerlies on millennial and orbital timescales for the last 800 ky. Extending the ocean dust record beyond the last 800 ky will help to evaluate dust-climate couplings since the Pliocene, the potential role of dust in iron fertilization and atmospheric CO2 drawdown during glacials, and whether dust input to Antarctica played a role in the MPT. The principal scientific objective of Subantarctic Front Sites U1534 and U1535 at the northern limit of the Scotia Sea is to reconstruct and understand how ocean circulation and intermediate water formation responds to changes in climate with a special focus on the connectivity between the Atlantic and Pacific basins, the “cold water route.” The Subantarctic Front contourite drift, deposited between 400 and 2000 m water depth on the northern flank of an east–west trending trough off the Chilean continental shelf, is ideally situated to monitor millennial- to orbital-scale variability in the export of Antarctic Intermediate Water beneath the Subantarctic Front. During Expedition 382, we recovered continuously deposited sediments from this drift spanning the late Pleistocene (from ~0.78 Ma to recent) and from the late Pliocene (~3.1–2.6 Ma). These sites are expected to yield a wide array of paleoceanographic records that can be used to interpret past changes in the density structure of the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean, track migrations of the Subantarctic Front, and give insights into the role and evolution of the cold water route over significant climate episodes, including the following: • The most recent warm interglacials of the late Pleistocene and • The intensification of Northern Hemisphere glaciation. 

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