Abstract: The oldest ice core records are obtained from the East Antarctic plateau. Water stable isotopes records are key for reconstructions of past climatic conditions both over the ice sheet and at the evaporation source. The accuracy of such climate reconstructions crucially depends on the knowledge of all the processes affecting the water vapour, precipitation and snow isotopic composition. Atmospheric fractionation processes are well understood and can be integrated in Rayleigh distillation and complex isotope enabled climate models. However, a comprehensive quantitative understanding of processes potentially altering the snow isotopic composition after the deposition is still missing, especially for exchanges between vapour and snow. In low accumulation sites such as found on the East Antarctic Plateau, these poorly constrained processes are especially likely to play a significant role. This limits the interpretation of isotopic composition from ice core records, specifically at short time scales. Here, we combine observations of isotopic composition in the vapour, the precipitation, the surface snow and the buried snow from various sites of the East Antarctic Plateau. At the seasonal scale, we highlight a significant impact of metamorphism on surface snow isotopic signal compared to the initial precipitation isotopic signal. In particular, in summer, exchanges of water molecules between vapour and snow are driven by the sublimation/condensation cycles at the diurnal scale. Using highly resolved isotopic composition profiles from pits in five East Antarctic sites, we identify a common 20?cm cycle which cannot be attributed to the seasonal variability of precipitation. Altogether, the smaller range of isotopic compositions observed in the buried and in the surface snow compared to the precipitation, and also the reduced slope between surface snow isotopic composition and temperature compared to precipitation, constitute evidences of post-deposition processes affecting the variability of the isotopic composition in the snow pack. To reproduce these processes in snow-models is crucial to understand the link between snow isotopic composition and climatic conditions and to improve the interpretation of isotopic composition as a paleoclimate proxy.

Abstract: Investigation of meteorological measurements along a 45 m tower at Dome C on the high East Antarctic Plateau revealed two distinct stable boundary layer (SBL) regimes at this location. The first regime is characterized by strong winds and continuous turbulence. It results in full vertical coupling of temperature, wind magnitude and wind direction in the SBL. The second regime is characterized by weak winds, associated with weak turbulent activity and very strong temperature inversions reaching up to 25 K in the lowest 10 m. Vertical temperature profiles are generally exponentially shaped (convex) in the first regime and ?convex?concave?convex? in the second. The transition between the two regimes is particularly abrupt when looking at the near?surface temperature inversion and it can be identified by a 10 m wind?speed threshold. With winds under this threshold, the turbulent heat supply toward the surface becomes significantly lower than the net surface radiative cooling. The threshold value (including its range of uncertainty) appears to agree with recent theoretical predictions from the so?called ?minimum wind speed for sustainable turbulence? (MWST) theory. For the quasi?steady, clear?sky winter cases, the relation between the near?surface inversion amplitude and the wind speed takes a characteristic ?S? shape. Closer analysis suggests that this relation corresponds to a ?critical transition? between a steady turbulent and a steady ?radiative? regime, with a dynamically unstable branch in the transition zone. These fascinating characteristics of the Antarctic boundary layer challenge present and future numerical models to represent this region in a physically correct manner.

Abstract: The Polar-regions are changing rapidly as greenhouse warming is continuing with huge impact on e.g. sea ice extent and snow cover. This change triggers teleconnections to low latitude areas challenging societies and human activity. We have, however, very little quantitative information of past climate in the Polar-regions that can be used to evaluate the potential responses and the response patterns to forcing changes and changes in boundary
conditions. Whatever anthropogenic changes may occur in the future, they will be superimposed on, and interact with, natural climate variations due to all the forcing we are aware of. This means we need to better document past climate/environmental variability of the Polar-regions. Especially in the Southern Ocean there are few time series recording past climate due to few suitable land areas and the few Sub-Antarctic Islands is remote and has cumbersome logistics. Continuous terrestrial records from this region are therefore urgently needed for constraining future scenarios from earth system models. Glaciers and ice caps are still ubiquitous in the Polar-regions, although they are rapidly shrinking due to the on-going warming. The continuous sedimentary records produced by glaciers, which are stored in downstream lakes, represent supreme archives of past variability wherefrom quantitative information of key climate system components can be extracted. Kerguelen Island is located within the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and the Southern Westerly wind belt and contains several glaciers and smaller ice caps. Terrestrial archives recording past history of the glaciers at Kerguelen thus have a unique potential to record past changes in oceanic and atmospheric circulation patterns from southern mid-latitudes. Here we present preliminary
results from the first distal glacier-fed lake that is sampled from Kerguelen Island. A 2.8 m long sediment core was obtained from Lac Guynemer (121masl.) located at the Peninsule Loranchet at the northern part of Kerguelen Island. The lake receives glacial meltwater from Glacier Guynemer, a small cirque glacier at the Pic Guynemer (1188masl.). The sediment core was analyzed with high-resolution core scanning X-ray fluorescence (XRF), magnetic
parameters, loss-on-ignition and dry bulk density, to reconstruct past glacier variability of Glacier Guynemer. The sediment record covers the last 5000 years and show a dynamic glacier responding to the changing boundary conditions during the Neoglacial.