Snow Accumulation in North Greenland over the Last Millennium - Towards an Interdisciplinary Approach in Earth System Science - page 182

Snow Accumulation in North Greenland
over the Last Millennium

Stefanie Wei bach, Anna Wegner and Sepp Kipfstuhl

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Abstract Knowledge of snow accumulation rates of the large polar ice sheets and
their variability over time is crucial for mass budget studies and sea level predic-
tions. Here we present mean long-term snow accumulation rates of 12 shallow ice
cores drilled by the North Greenland traverse in the northern part of Greenland. The
ice core records cover the last 500

1000 years. We find a trend of decreasing

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accumulation rate from the southwest ( 180 mmWE/a) to northeast

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( 95 mmWE/a). Ice divide sites show higher accumulation rates but also higher

variability (up to 20 %) than sites off the ice divides (less than 10 %). Unlike a
recent modeling study our results indicate no change in the accumulation in the
north of Greenland during the last 400 years.

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Keywords Greenland Accumulation rate Polar ice sheet Mass budget North

Greenland Ice divide

1 Introduction

Polar ice sheets are unique archives of present and past climatic and environmental
conditions. Ice cores drilled on the polar ice sheets provide not only extended
records of the Earth s climate in the far past but give also insight into the most

recent development in remote parts of the globe where instrumental records are
sparse or not available at all. The polar ice sheets are not only unique paleo-archives
they are also an important active component of the climate system. Changes in the
accumulation rate affect the mass balance of the ice sheets but also re

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fl ect changes

in the hydrological cycle and atmospheric circulation.