"Climatic conditions in Antarctica range from the relatively mild maritime northern section of the Antarctic Peninsula to the frigid high plateau of East Antarctica. Antarctica contains 90% of the Earth's ice and has the potential to make a significant contribution to global mean sea-level rise. Although most ice sheet melting so far has occurred when warm ocean waters flow under the peripheral ice shelves, high air temperatures have led to significant ice melting in some regions of coastal Antarctica, e.g. the Antarctic Peninsula. With climate models suggesting that regional air temperatures will increase over the coming decades, a key priority in polar research is to understand the conditions that lead to the extreme high temperature events and their subsequent impacts on surface melting. A better understanding of the process would help us to derive more accurate projections of their future occurrence and better understand their impacts on ice sheet mass balance.
High temperature events can have a major impact of the Antarctic environment and ecosystems. The synoptic situation at the time often consists of a warm ridge extending towards Antarctica in association with strong meridional flow. Large magnitude, more persistent events have been linked to atmospheric rivers, which are narrow bands of warm, moist air originating in lower latitudes. It remains puzzling that some of the high temperature events have been preceded by downslope flow from the interior of Antarctica, where the air is normally much colder than the coast. Many of these events involve complex interactions between the air, ocean and ice and the dynamical aspects of extreme high temperature events remain poorly understood. The aims of this project are to investigate high temperature events over coastal Antarctica using a combination of station observations, observationally constrained reconstructions assimilated data sets as well as regional climate simulations. It will also examine how these extreme events impact on surface melting of the ice sheet and the development of supraglacial lakes, with potential implications for ice shelf stability via hydrofracturing."
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