Abstract
Abstract. Ice cores at Siple Dome, West Antarctica, receive the majority of their precipitation from Pacific Ocean moisture sources. Pacific climate patterns, particularly the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Southern Annular Mode (SAM), affect local temperature, atmospheric circulation, snow accumulation, and water isotope signals at Siple Dome. We examine borehole temperatures, accumulation, and water isotopes from a number of shallow ice cores recovered from a 60 km north–south transect of the dome. The data reveal spatial gradients partly explained by orographic uplift, as well as microclimate effects that are expressed differently on the Pacific and inland flanks. Our analyses suggest that while an ENSO and SAM signal are evident at Siple Dome, differences in microclimate and possible postdepositional movement of snow makes climate reconstruction problematic, a conclusion which should be considered at other West Antarctic coastal dome locations.
Highlights
The Siple Dome ice core was drilled as part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) initiative managed by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Polar Programs (OPP)
We define strong El Niño years and strong La Niña years as 5 consecutive months greater than or less than 1.5 ◦C sea surface temperature anomalies for the Niño 3.4 region, respectively. We find that both water isotope and net accumulation shallow ice core records do not share a common signature with any of the strong El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events
We find that the climatology of Siple Dome expressed in water isotopes, net accumulation, and borehole temperatures is highly complex
Summary
The Siple Dome ice core was drilled as part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) initiative managed by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Polar Programs (OPP). One of two deep WAIS initiative ice cores (the other being the inland and more elevated WAIS Divide), Siple Dome’s coastal location in the Pacific sector of Antarctica was selected in part to study regional climate signals. We evaluate a series of shallow ice cores drilled at sites across the dome to better characterize small-scale patterns in relationship with local climate variability as well as determine the feasibility of long-term climate reconstruction using coastal ice core sites in West Antarctica (WA). The Siple Coast contains five major ice streams (A–E), which drain part of the WAIS, and is immediately adjacent to the Ross Ice Shelf.
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