Role of precipitation and extreme precipitation events on the variability of ice core surface mass balances in Dronning Maud Land: insights from RACMO2.3 and statistical downscaling

Wauthy, Sarah; Dalaiden, Quentin

doi:10.5194/tc-20-1279-2026

Articles | Volume 20, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-1279-2026

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-1279-2026

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

Articles | Volume 20, issue 2

Research article

|

18 Feb 2026

Research article |

| 18 Feb 2026

Role of precipitation and extreme precipitation events on the variability of ice core surface mass balances in Dronning Maud Land: insights from RACMO2.3 and statistical downscaling

Sarah Wauthy and Quentin Dalaiden

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-20-1279-2026-supplement

Data sets

MASS2ANT Snowfall Dataset (Downscaling @5.5km over Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica, 1850-2014): Daily fields (Part 1) Nicolas Ghilain et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6355455

MASS2ANT Snowfall Dataset (Downscaling @5.5km over Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica, 1850-2014): Daily fields (Part 2) Nicolas Ghilain et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6359385

MASS2ANT Snowfall Dataset (Downscaling @5.5km over Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica, 1850-2014): Daily fields (Part 3) Nicolas Ghilain et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6362299

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

Short summary

The surface mass balance (SMB) is one of the main drivers of future Antarctic mass changes. The interannual variability of the SMB is dominated by precipitation and extreme precipitation events (EPEs). In this study, we analyze the role of precipitation and EPEs in the contrasting SMB trends observed in the ice-core records of three adjacent ice rises. Our results show that precipitation and EPEs alone cannot explain the observed contrasts and suggest that other processes may be at work.