Climatology of the Mount Brown South ice  core site in East Antarctica: implications for  the interpretation of a water isotope record

Jackson, Sarah L.; Vance, Tessa R.; Crockart, Camilla; Moy, Andrew; Plummer, Christopher; Abram, Nerilie J.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1653-2023

Articles | Volume 19, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1653-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Ice core science at the three poles (CP/TC inter-journal SI)

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1653-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 8

Research article

|

14 Aug 2023

Research article |

| 14 Aug 2023

Climatology of the Mount Brown South ice core site in East Antarctica: implications for the interpretation of a water isotope record

Sarah L. Jackson, Tessa R. Vance, Camilla Crockart, Andrew Moy, Christopher Plummer, and Nerilie J. Abram

Data sets

ERA5 hourly data on single levels from 1940 to present H. Hersbach, B. Bell, P. Berrisford, G. Biavati, A. Horányi, J. Muñoz Sabater, J. Nicolas, C. Peubey, R. Radu, I. Rozum, D. Schepers, A. Simmons, C. Soci, D. Dee, and J.-N. Thépaut https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.adbb2d47

Antarctic daily precipitation amounts for January 1979-July 2017 from the RACMO version 3p2 limited area atmospheric model, along with flags that indicate extreme precipitation events (Version 1) W. van de Berg, M. van Wessem, M. van de Broeke, J. Turner, and T. Phillips https://doi.org/10.5285/bbf12a6f-7d97-4951-9bd1-e4224e2abac9

MARv3.10 outputs: What is the Surface Mass Balance of Antarctica? An Intercomparison of Regional Climate Model Estimates C. Kittel, C. Amory, C. Agosta, and X. Fettweis https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5195636

Surface meteorological data from a network of automatic weather stations at a number of Antarctic sites and sub-Antarctic sites, Ver. 1 I. Allison and P. Heil https://data.aad.gov.au/metadata/records/antarctic_aws

ARTMIP Tier 2 Reanalysis catalogue NCAR https://doi.org/10.26024/rawv-yx53

Daily synoptic weather types of southern Indian Ocean: January 1979-October 2018, Ver. 1 D. Udy, T. Vance, A. Kiem, N. Holbrook, and M. Curran https://doi.org/10.4225/15/58eedf00d78fe

El Niño Southern Oscillation signal in a new East Antarctic ice core, Mount Brown South, Ver. 1 C. K. Crockart https://doi.org/10.4225/15/58eedf6812621

ERA5 hourly data on pressure levels from 1940 to present H. Hersbach, B. Bell, P. Berrisford, G. Biavati, A. Horányi, J. Muñoz Sabater, J. Nicolas, C. Peubey, R. Radu, I. Rozum, D. Schepers, A. Simmons, C. Soci, D. Dee, and J.-N. Thépaut https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.bd0915c6

Short summary

Ice core records are useful tools for reconstructing past climate. However, ice cores favour recording climate conditions at times when snowfall occurs. Large snowfall events in Antarctica are often associated with warmer-than-usual temperatures. We show that this results in a tendency for the Mount Brown South ice core record to preserve a temperature record biased to the climate conditions that exist during extreme events, rather than a temperature record that reflects the mean annual climate.