Airborne-radar and ice-core observations of snow accumulation in West Antarctica
Airborne-radar and ice-core observations of snow accumulation in West Antarctica
复制标题
南极洲西部积雪的机载雷达和冰芯观测
DOI:
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发表时间:
2014
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通讯作者:
B. Medley
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作者:
B. Medley
Airborne-radar and ice-core observations of snow ac cumulation in West Antarctica Brooke Medley Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Dr. Ian R. Joughin Applied Physics Laboratory The world’s ice sheets store enough water to raise global eustatic sea level by several tens of meters, and therefore, any fluctuations in their size will cause sea level to rise or fall. The ne t mass exchanged with the ocean – defined as the mass balance – determines the glacial contribution to sea level and is the difference in snow accumulated in the interior and ice discharged into the ocean at the ice sheet peripher y. While new techniques in remotely acquired surface velocities lead to improved discharge measu r ments, snow accumulation remains unmeasured over much of the of the ice sheet. This work aims to improve our understanding of sno w accumulation over two of the most rapidly evolving glaciers in Antarctica: Pine Islan d and Thwaites. Specifically, we use two airborne radar systems to image and track the nearsurface internal stratigraphy to measure snow accumulation rates over both glaciers. This method allows for investigation of the spatial and temporal variations in accumulation at the catchmen t-scale, which is essential for determining glacier mass balance. Examination of the radar-derived accumulation rate s over Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers revealed several results including: (1) ac cumulation exhibited no significant trend between 1980 and 2009, (2) the sea-level contributi on from Pine Island and Thwaites tripled from +0.09 mm yr -1 in the mid-1990s to +0.27 mm yr -1 by 2010, (3) a shift towards higher accumulation occurred between 1944–1984 and 1985–20 09, observed in both ice core and radar records, and (4) atmospheric models are an adequate replacement for accumulation measurements in areas with few observations. These findings indicate that accumulation is not c oncurrently compensating the enhanced ice discharge from the region, and as a result, the sea-level contribution from these glaciers is increasing. Furthermore, a recent shift towards hi gher mean accumulation suggests these glaciers might have been out of balance earlier tha n originally thought.