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. (2022). On the energy budget of a low-Arctic snowpack (Vol. 16).
Abstract: Arctic landscapes are covered in snow for at least 6 months of the year. The energy balance of the snow cover plays a key role in these environments, influencing the surface albedo, the thermal regime of the permafrost, and other factors. Our goal is to quantify all major heat fluxes above, within, and below a low-Arctic snowpack at a shrub tundra site on the east coast of Hudson Bay in eastern Canada. The study is based on observations from a flux tower that uses the eddy covariance approach and from profiles of temperature and thermal conductivity in the snow and soil. Additionally, we compared the observations with simulations produced using the Crocus snow model. We found that radiative losses due to negative longwave radiation are mostly counterbalanced by the sensible heat flux, whereas the latent heat flux is minimal. At the snow surface, the heat flux into the snow is similar in magnitude to the sensible heat flux. Because the snow cover stores very little heat, the majority of the upward heat flux in the snow is used to cool the soil. Overall, the model was able to reproduce the observed energy balance, but due to the effects of atmospheric stratification, it showed some deficiencies when simulating turbulent heat fluxes at an hourly timescale.
Programme: 1042
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Alison F. Banwell, Rajashree Tri Datta, Rebecca L. Dell, Mahsa Moussavi, Ludovic Brucker, Ghislain Picard, Christopher A. Shuman, Laura A. Stevens. (2021). The 32-year record-high surface melt in 2019/2020 on the northern George VI Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula (Vol. 15).
Abstract: In the 2019/2020 austral summer, the surface melt duration and extent on the northern George VI Ice Shelf (GVIIS) was exceptional compared to the 31 previous summers of distinctly lower melt. This finding is based on analysis of near-continuous 41-year satellite microwave radiometer and scatterometer data, which are sensitive to meltwater on the ice shelf surface and in the near-surface snow. Using optical satellite imagery from Landsat 8 (2013 to 2020) and Sentinel-2 (2017 to 2020), record volumes of surface meltwater ponding were also observed on the northern GVIIS in 2019/2020, with 23 % of the surface area covered by 0.62 km3 of ponded meltwater on 19 January. These exceptional melt and surface ponding conditions in 2019/2020 were driven by sustained air temperatures ?0 ?C for anomalously long periods (55 to 90 h) from late November onwards, which limited meltwater refreezing. The sustained warm periods were likely driven by warm, low-speed (?7.5 m s?1) northwesterly and northeasterly winds and not by foehn wind conditions, which were only present for 9 h total in the 2019/2020 melt season. Increased surface ponding on ice shelves may threaten their stability through increased potential for hydrofracture initiation; a risk that may increase due to firn air content depletion in response to near-surface melting.
Programme: 1110
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Zhuang Jiang, Becky Alexander, Joel Savarino, Joseph Erbland, Lei Geng. (2021). Impacts of the photo-driven post-depositional processing on snow nitrate and its isotopes at Summit, Greenland: a model-based study (Vol. 15).
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Charles Amory. (2020). (Vol. 14).
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. (2019). Multi-tracer study of gas trapping in an East Antarctic ice core (Vol. 13).
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. (2018). Sensitivity of the current Antarctic surface mass balance to sea surface conditions using MAR (Vol. 12).
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Souverijns, N., A. Gossart, S. Lhermitte, I. V. Gorodetskaya, J. Grazioli, A. Berne, C. Durán-alarcón, B. Boudevillain, C. Genthon, C. Scarchilli, And N. P. M. Van Lipzig. (2018). Evaluation of the CloudSat surface snowfall product over Antarctica using ground-based precipitation radars (Vol. 12).
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. (2018). Seasonal variations of the backscattering coefficient measured by radar altimeters over the Antarctic Ice Sheet (Vol. 12).
Abstract: Abstract. Spaceborne radar altimeters are a valuable tool for observing the Antarctic Ice Sheet. The radar wave interaction with the snow provides information on both the surface and the subsurface of the snowpack due to its dependence on the snow properties. However, the penetration of the radar wave within the snowpack also induces a negative bias on the estimated surface elevation. Empirical corrections of this space- and time-varying bias are usually based on the backscattering coefficient variability. We investigate the spatial and seasonal variations of the backscattering coefficient at the S (3.2GHz?9.4cm), Ku (13.6GHz?2.3cm) and Ka (37GHz?0.8cm) bands. We identified that the backscattering coefficient at Ku band reaches a maximum in winter in part of the continent (Region 1) and in the summer in the remaining (Region 2), while the evolution at other frequencies is relatively uniform over the whole continent. To explain this contrasting behavior between frequencies and between regions, we studied the sensitivity of the backscattering coefficient at three frequencies to several parameters (surface snow density, snow temperature and snow grain size) using an electromagnetic model. The results show that the seasonal cycle of the backscattering coefficient at Ka frequency is dominated by the volume echo and is mainly driven by snow temperature evolution everywhere. In contrast, at S band, the cycle is dominated by the surface echo. At Ku band, the seasonal cycle is dominated by the volume echo in Region 1 and by the surface echo in Region 2. This investigation provides new information on the seasonal dynamics of the Antarctic Ice Sheet surface and provides new clues to build more accurate corrections of the radar altimeter surface elevation signal in the future.
Programme: 1110
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. (2018). Archival processes of the water stable isotope signal in East Antarctic ice cores (Vol. 12).
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. (2018). On the similarity and apparent cycles of isotopic variations in East Antarctic snow pits (Vol. 12).
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