Drivers of observed winter–spring sea-ice and snow thickness at a coastal site in East Antarctica

Francis, Diana; Fonseca, Ricardo; Nelli, Narendra; Heil, Petra; Wille, Jonathan D.; Gorodetskaya, Irina V.; Massom, Robert A.

doi:10.5194/tc-20-1-2026

Articles | Volume 20, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-1-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-1-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 1

Research article

|

06 Jan 2026

Research article |

| 06 Jan 2026

Drivers of observed winter–spring sea-ice and snow thickness at a coastal site in East Antarctica

Diana Francis, Ricardo Fonseca, Narendra Nelli, Petra Heil, Jonathan D. Wille, Irina V. Gorodetskaya, and Robert A. Massom

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-1-2026-supplement

Data sets

ERA5 hourly data on single levels from 1940 to present H. Hersbach et al. https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.adbb2d47

ERA5 hourly data on pressure levels from 1940 to present H. Hersbach et al. https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.bd0915c6

Antarctic Climate Data Collected by Australian Agencies AADC https://aad.gov.au

World Radiation Monitoring Center - Baseline Surface Radiation Network AWI https://bsrn.awi.de/

Antarctic Meteorological Research Center & Automatic Weather Stations Project M. Lazzara ttps://amrc.ssec.wisc.edu/

Ocean and Sea Ice Satellite Application Facility EUMETSAT https://osi-saf.eumetsat.int/products/osi-405-c

University of Bremen, Sea Ice Remote Sensing UoB https://data.seaice.uni-bremen.de/

University of Wyoming - atmospheric soundings L. Oolman https://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html

Model code and software

HYSPLIT for Linux - Public (unregistered) version download NOAA ARL https://www.ready.noaa.gov/HYSPLIT_linuxtri

The Polar WRF PWRF https://polarmet.osu.edu/PWRF/

Math, Graphics, Programming Mathworks https://uk.mathworks.com/products/matlab.html

Short summary

This study investigates the role of atmospheric dynamics in sea-ice thickness and snow depth at a coastal site in East Antarctica using in situ measurements and numerical modeling. The snow thickness variability is impacted by atmospheric forcing, with significant contributions from precipitation, Foehn effects, blowing snow, and episodic warm and moist air intrusions, which led to changes of up to 0.08 m within a day for a field that is in the range of 0.02–0.18 m during July–November 2022.