Firn accumulation records for the past 1000 years on the basis of dielectric profiling of six cores from Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica

• Published in: Journal of glaciology 2004, Vol.50 (169), p.279-291
• Main Authors: Hofstede, Coen M., Roderik, S.W van de Wal, Kaspers, Karsten A., van den Broeke, Michiel R., Karlöf, Lars, Winther, Jan-Gunnar, Isaksson, Elisabeth, Lappegard, Gante, Mulvaney, Robert, Oerter, Hans, Wilhelms, Frank
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Earth, ocean, space; Exact sciences and technology; External geophysics; Snow. Ice. Glaciers
• ISSN: 0022-1430; 1727-5652
• DOI: 10.3189/172756504781830169

This paper presents an overview of firn accumulation in Dronning Maud Land (DML), Antarctica, over the past 1000 years. It is based on a chronology established with dated volcanogenic horizons detected by dielectric profiling of six medium-length firn cores. In 1998 the British Antarctic Survey retrieved a medium-length firn core from western DML. During the Nordic EPICA (European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica) traverse of 2000/01, a 160 m long firn core was drilled in eastern DML. Together with previously published data from four other medium-length ice cores from the area, these cores yield 50 possible volcanogenic horizons. All six firn cores cover a mutual time record until the 29th eruption. This overlapping period represents a period of approximately 1000 years, with mean values ranging between 43 and 71 mm w.e. The cores revealed no significant trend in snow accumulation. Running averages over 50 years, averaged over the six cores, indicate temporal variations of5%. All cores display evidence of a minimum in the mean annual firn accumulation rate around AD 1500 and maxima around AD 1400 and 1800. The mean increase over the early 20th century was the strongest increase, but the absolute accumulation rate was not much higher than around AD 1400. In eastern DML a 13% increase is observed for the second half of the 20th century.