Evaluation of the Antarctic Mesoscale Prediction System based on snow accumulation observations over the Ross Ice Shelf

Abstract

Recent snow height measurements (2008–15) from nine automatic weather stations (AWSs) on the Ross Ice Shelf are used to examine the synoptic and seasonal variability in snow accumulation, and also to evaluate the performance of the Antarctic Mesoscale Prediction System (AMPS) for precipitation. The number of snow accumulation events varies from one station to another between 2008 and 2015, thus demonstrating geographic dependence. The interannual variability in snow accumulation is too high to determine its seasonality based on the current AWS observations with limited time coverage. Comparison between the AMPS and AWS snow height measurements show that approximately 28% of the AWS events are reproduced by AMPS. Furthermore, there are significant correlations between AMPS and AWS coincident event sizes at five stations (p < 0.05). This finding suggests that AMPS has a certain ability to represent actual precipitation events.