Present and Future of Rainfall in Antarctica

Abstract

During the austral summer 2013-2014, an Adélie penguin colony near Dumont d'Urville (DDU) station, coastal Adélie Land, Antarctica, experienced a complete reproductive failure, a so-called "zero" year. Among the main reasons for this disaster was an unusual and dramatic rainfall event that occurred on January 1, 2014, and that was responsible for the death of all chicks, whose downy plumage has little waterproofing ability (Ropert-Coudert et al., 2015). According to ice-core records in which water from rainfall and melting manifests as clear frozen layers, two occurrences of heavy liquid precipitation and/or melt could be detected in the decade preceding 2014 in coastal Adélie Land (Goursaud et al., 2017).At a distance of about 1,500 km to the South-East, the Ross Ice Shelf underwent an extensive, intense, and prolonged surface melt event in January 2016 (Nicolas et al., 2017). Such an event was caused by a strong and sustained advection of warm oceanic air. During the first days of the event, rainfall significantly preconditioned the snowpack by increasing its temperature due to latent heat release from water freezing and hence, contributed to extend the melting. Such a phenomenon has been frequently observed over Greenland (Doyle et al., 2015) but is quite rare in Antarctica.The phase of Antarctic precipitation can directly impact the surface mass balance of the ice sheet through modulation of the surface albedo (Kirchgäßbner, 2011). Liquid precipitation can also accelerate the retreat

Rain Amplification of Persistent Organic Pollutants

“…This is especially relevant in polar environments, even though rainfall occurrence is predicted to increase in the coming decades. 76 The metaanalysis performed here allows for calculating the ratio between K RG versus de K SA (the snow-air partition coefficient) from the field-derived data. For such a comparison, we use K SA as estimated in a companion meta-analysis reported elsewhere.…”

“…These two islands are located in the South Shetland Archipelago (Figure S1) in the Antarctic Peninsula. In this area, periods with temperatures above freezing during summer allow rain to fall . The samples for PFAS analysis were collected in both islands; however, the samples for OPEs and PAHs were collected only in Livingston Island.…”

The Atmospheric River Threat to Antarctic Peninsula Ice-Shelf Stability

“…Third, related with melt water, rainfall events lead to periods of extremely high rates of rn saturation and runoff 30 . Runoff here refers to liquid water beyond the saturation point of the snowpack that does not necessarily drain into the ocean and could remain on the ice shelf.…”

Precipitation phase transition in austral summer over the Antarctic Peninsula

“…A recent study by Vignon et al (2021) showed that a significant portion of the annual precipitation on the western AP occurs as rainfall. The chances of rain and associated surface melt in West Antarctica and the AP increase markedly during warm air intrusions and atmospheric rivers (Wille et al, 2019;Nicolas et al, 2017).…”

“…The chances of rain and associated surface melt in West Antarctica and the AP increase markedly during warm air intrusions and atmospheric rivers (Wille et al, 2019;Nicolas et al, 2017). Recent studies of precipitation projections show increases in consecutive wet days (Chyhareva et al, 2019) and rain and melt days (Bozkurt et al, 2021;Vignon et al, 2021) in the AP region during the 21 st century, indirectly indicating that surface melt will continue.…”