Articles | Volume 12, issue 6
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-1987-2018
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-1987-2018
Research article
 | 
12 Jun 2018
Research article |  | 12 Jun 2018

How does the ice sheet surface mass balance relate to snowfall? Insights from a ground-based precipitation radar in East Antarctica

Niels Souverijns, Alexandra Gossart, Irina V. Gorodetskaya, Stef Lhermitte, Alexander Mangold, Quentin Laffineur, Andy Delcloo, and Nicole P. M. van Lipzig

Related authors

Ice-nucleating particle concentration impacts cloud properties over Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica, in COSMO-CLM2
Florian Sauerland, Niels Souverijns, Anna Possner, Heike Wex, Preben Van Overmeiren, Alexander Mangold, Kwinten Van Weverberg, and Nicole van Lipzig
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1341,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1341, 2024
Short summary
Brief communication: Impact of common ice mask in surface mass balance estimates over the Antarctic ice sheet
Nicolaj Hansen, Sebastian B. Simonsen, Fredrik Boberg, Christoph Kittel, Andrew Orr, Niels Souverijns, J. Melchior van Wessem, and Ruth Mottram
The Cryosphere, 16, 711–718, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-711-2022,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-711-2022, 2022
Short summary
PARASO, a circum-Antarctic fully coupled ice-sheet–ocean–sea-ice–atmosphere–land model involving f.ETISh1.7, NEMO3.6, LIM3.6, COSMO5.0 and CLM4.5
Charles Pelletier, Thierry Fichefet, Hugues Goosse, Konstanze Haubner, Samuel Helsen, Pierre-Vincent Huot, Christoph Kittel, François Klein, Sébastien Le clec'h, Nicole P. M. van Lipzig, Sylvain Marchi, François Massonnet, Pierre Mathiot, Ehsan Moravveji, Eduardo Moreno-Chamarro, Pablo Ortega, Frank Pattyn, Niels Souverijns, Guillian Van Achter, Sam Vanden Broucke, Alexander Vanhulle, Deborah Verfaillie, and Lars Zipf
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 553–594, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-553-2022,https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-553-2022, 2022
Short summary
What is the surface mass balance of Antarctica? An intercomparison of regional climate model estimates
Ruth Mottram, Nicolaj Hansen, Christoph Kittel, J. Melchior van Wessem, Cécile Agosta, Charles Amory, Fredrik Boberg, Willem Jan van de Berg, Xavier Fettweis, Alexandra Gossart, Nicole P. M. van Lipzig, Erik van Meijgaard, Andrew Orr, Tony Phillips, Stuart Webster, Sebastian B. Simonsen, and Niels Souverijns
The Cryosphere, 15, 3751–3784, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-3751-2021,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-3751-2021, 2021
Short summary
Evaluation of CloudSat snowfall rate profiles by a comparison with in situ micro-rain radar observations in East Antarctica
Florentin Lemonnier, Jean-Baptiste Madeleine, Chantal Claud, Christophe Genthon, Claudio Durán-Alarcón, Cyril Palerme, Alexis Berne, Niels Souverijns, Nicole van Lipzig, Irina V. Gorodetskaya, Tristan L'Ecuyer, and Norman Wood
The Cryosphere, 13, 943–954, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-943-2019,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-943-2019, 2019
Short summary

Related subject area

Discipline: Ice sheets | Subject: Mass Balance Obs
Mapping geodetically inferred Antarctic ice surface height changes into thickness changes: a sensitivity study
Natasha Valencic, Linda Pan, Konstantin Latychev, Natalya Gomez, Evelyn Powell, and Jerry X. Mitrovica
The Cryosphere, 18, 2969–2978, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-2969-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-2969-2024, 2024
Short summary
Globally consistent estimates of high-resolution Antarctic ice mass balance and spatially resolved glacial isostatic adjustment
Matthias O. Willen, Martin Horwath, Eric Buchta, Mirko Scheinert, Veit Helm, Bernd Uebbing, and Jürgen Kusche
The Cryosphere, 18, 775–790, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-775-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-775-2024, 2024
Short summary
On the importance of the humidity flux for the surface mass balance in the accumulation zone of the Greenland Ice Sheet
Laura J. Dietrich, Hans Christian Steen-Larsen, Sonja Wahl, Anne-Katrine Faber, and Xavier Fettweis
The Cryosphere, 18, 289–305, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-289-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-289-2024, 2024
Short summary
Combined GNSS reflectometry–refractometry for automated and continuous in situ surface mass balance estimation on an Antarctic ice shelf
Ladina Steiner, Holger Schmithüsen, Jens Wickert, and Olaf Eisen
The Cryosphere, 17, 4903–4916, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-4903-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-4903-2023, 2023
Short summary
Evaluating Greenland surface-mass-balance and firn-densification data using ICESat-2 altimetry
Benjamin E. Smith, Brooke Medley, Xavier Fettweis, Tyler Sutterley, Patrick Alexander, David Porter, and Marco Tedesco
The Cryosphere, 17, 789–808, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-789-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-789-2023, 2023
Short summary

Cited articles

Agosta, C., Favier, V., Genthon, C., Gallée, H., Krinner, G., Lenaerts, J. T. M., and van den Broeke, M. R.: A 40-year accumulation dataset for Adelie Land, Antarctica and its application for model validation, Clim. Dynam., 38, 75–86, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-011-1103-4, 2012. a
Agosta, C., Favier, V., Krinner, G., Gallée, H., Fettweis, X., and Genthon, C.: High-resolution modelling of the Antarctic surface mass balance, application for the twentieth, twenty first and twenty second centuries, Clim. Dynam., 41, 3247–3260, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-013-1903-9, 2013. a
Amory, C., Trouvilliez, A., Gallée, H., Favier, V., Naaim-Bouvet, F., Genthon, C., Agosta, C., Piard, L., and Bellot, H.: Comparison between observed and simulated aeolian snow mass fluxes in Adélie Land, East Antarctica, The Cryosphere, 9, 1373–1383, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-9-1373-2015, 2015. a, b
Amory, C., Gallée, H., Naaim-Bouvet, F., Favier, V., Vignon, E., Picard, G., Trouvilliez, A., Piard, L., Genthon, C., and Bellot, H.: Seasonal Variations in Drag Coefficient over a Sastrugi-Covered Snowfield in Coastal East Antarctica, Bound.-Lay. Meteorol., 164, 107–133, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10546-017-0242-5, 2017. a, b, c, d
Anderson, P.: A method for rescaling humidity sensors at temperatures well below freezing, J. Atmos. Ocean. Tech., 11, 1388–1391, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0426(1994)011<1388:AMFRHS>2.0.CO;2, 1994. a
Download
Short summary
This work is the first to gain insight into the local surface mass balance over Antarctica using accurate long-term snowfall observations. A non-linear relationship between accumulation and snowfall is discovered, indicating that total surface mass balance measurements are not a good proxy for snowfall over Antarctica. Furthermore, the meteorological drivers causing changes in the local SMB are identified.