Evidence from Antarctic ice cores for recent increases in snow accumulation

Abstract

LARGE uncertainties exist in the present knowledge of the mass budget of the Antarctic ice sheet, because of a lack of data on the rates of both ice outflow and snow accumulation¹. Present estimates indicate that both the outflow and the net accumulation are approximately equal to 2,000 km³ of ice per year (equivalent to about 6 mm of sea level)². The temporal variation of accumulation rate is central to determinations of the mass budget, because accumulation can change rapidly in response to short-term climate variations, whereas ice flow varies only on longer timescales. Here we present time series showing changes in the net rate of snow accumulation since 1806 along a 700-km segment of East Antarctica. The accumulation record was derived from the thicknesses of annual layers in ice cores, deduced from seasonal variations in oxygen isotope ratio and in ice-crust stratigraphy. We find a significant increase in the accumulation rate following a minimum around 1960, leading to recent rates that are about 20% above the long-term mean. If this recent increase is widespread, as suggested by shorter-term accumulation data from across a large part of Antarctica, the positive imbalance (5–25% of the mass input) shown in recent studies of the ice sheet's mass budget¹ may have existed only since the late 1960s. We estimate that this increase in accumulation rate should contribute to a lowering of sea level of 1.0–1.2 mm per year.