Can we reconstruct the formation of large open-ocean polynyas in the Southern Ocean using ice core records?

Goosse, Hugues; Dalaiden, Quentin; Cavitte, Marie G. P.; Zhang, Liping

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-111-2021

Articles | Volume 17, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-111-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-111-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 1

Research article

|

12 Jan 2021

Research article |

| 12 Jan 2021

Can we reconstruct the formation of large open-ocean polynyas in the Southern Ocean using ice core records?

Hugues Goosse, Quentin Dalaiden, Marie G. P. Cavitte, and Liping Zhang

Data sets

Three reconstructions of the formation of large open ocean polynyas in the Southern Ocean using ice core records H. Goosse, Q. Dalaiden, M. G. P. Cavitte, and L. Zhang https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4271569

The SCAR READER project: Toward a highquality database of mean Antarctic meteorological observations J. Turner, S. R. Colwell, G. J. Marshall, T. A. Lachlan-Cope, A. M. Carleton, P. D. Jones, V. Lagun, P. A. Reid, and S. Iagovkina https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(2004)017<2890:TSRPTA>2.0.CO;2

New reconstruction of Antarctic near-surface temperatures: Multidecadal trends and reliability of global reanalyses Nicolas J. P. and Bromwich, D. H.: https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00733.1

PAGES Antarctica2k Temperature Reconstructions B. Stenni, M. A. J. Curran, N. J. Abram, A. J. Orsi, S. Goursaud, V. Masson-Delmotte, R. Neukom, H. Goosse, D. V. Divine, T. D. van Ommen, E. J. Steig, D. A. Dixon, E. R. Thomas, N. A. N. Bertler, E. Isaksson, A. A. Ekaykin, M. Werner, and M. Frezzotti https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo-search/study/22589

Antarctic regional snow accumulation composites over the past 1000 years E. R. Thomas https://doi.org/10.5285/c4ecfe25-12f2-453b-ad19-49a19e90ee32

Increased snowfall over the Antarctic Ice Sheet mitigated twentieth-century sea-level rise B. Medley and E. R. Thomas https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0356-x

Historical climate model output of ECHAM5- wiso from 1871–2011 at T106 resolution N. J. Steiger https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1249604

Short summary

Polynyas are ice-free oceanic areas within the sea ice pack. Small polynyas are regularly observed in the Southern Ocean, but large open-ocean polynyas have been rare over the past decades. Using records from available ice cores in Antarctica, we reconstruct past polynya activity and confirm that those events have also been rare over the past centuries, but the information provided by existing data is not sufficient to precisely characterize the timing of past polynya opening.