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www.the-cryosphere-discuss.net/4/1107/2010/
doi:10.5194/tcd-4-1107-2010
© Author(s) 2010. This work is distributed
under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Spatial and temporal variability in summer snow pack in the Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica
1Finnish Meteorological Institute, P.O. Box 503, 00101 Helsinki, Finland
2Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 64, 00014 Helsinki, Finland
*now at: Finnish Environmental Institute, P.O. Box 140, 00251 Helsinki, Finland
Abstract. Snow temperature, density, and layering were measured in four summers in the Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica. Data from a 310-km-long transect showed that the most homogeneous snow pack located in the Riiser-Larsen Ice Shelf, while horizontal gradients in snow density, temperature, and hardness were larger in the escarpment region. In the local scale, day-to-day temporal variability dominated the standard deviation of snow temperature, while the diurnal cycle was next important, and horizontal variability in the scale of 0.4 to 10 m was the smallest component. The day-to-day and total small-scale variability decreased exponentially with depth with an e-folding depth at 0.25 to 0.30 m. Snow temperature depended on the cloud cover in the uppermost 0.30 m and snow density in the uppermost 0.10 m. Both in the intra-pit and transect scales, the ratio of horizontal to temporal variability increased with depth. In the intra-pit scale the temporal variability in snow density exceeded the horizontal variability throughout the uppermost 0.50 m layer, but in the 100-km scale only in the uppermost centimetres. The horizontal standard deviation of snow density increased rapidly between the scales of 0.4 and 2 m, and much more gradually from 101 to 102 m.
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Notice on Discussion StatusCitation: Vihma, T., Mattila, O.-P., Pirazzini, R., and Johansson, M. M.: Spatial and temporal variability in summer snow pack in the Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica, The Cryosphere Discuss., 4, 1107-1150, doi:10.5194/tcd-4-1107-2010, 2010. Bibtex EndNote Reference Manager XML
