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The glacimarine environment of the Antarctic Peninsula region is one of the fastest warming places on Earth today, but details of changes in the recent past remain unknown. Large distances and widespread variability separate late Holocene palaeoclimate reconstructions in this region. This study focuses on a marine sediment core collected from ca. 2000 m below sea level in the Central Bransfield Strait that serves as a key for understanding changes in this region. The core yielded a high sedimentation rate and therefore provides an exceptional high-resolution sedimentary record composed of hemipelagic sediment, with some turbidites. An age model has been created using radiocarbon dates that span the Late Holocene: 3560 cal yr BP to present. This chronostratigraphic framework was used to establish five units, which are grouped into two super-units: a lower super-unit (3560–1600 cal yr BP) and an upper super-unit (1600 cal yr BP–present), based on facies descriptions, laser particle size analysis, x-ray analysis, multi-sensor core logger data, weight percentages and isotopic values of total organic carbon and nitrogen. We interpret the signal contained within the upper super-unit as an increase in surface water irradiance and/or shortening of the sea-ice season and the five units are broadly synchronous with climatic intervals across the Antarctic Peninsula region. While the general trends of regional climatic periods are represented in the Bransfield Basin core we have examined, each additional record that is obtained adds variability to the known history of the Antarctic Peninsula, rather than clarifying specific trends. Keywords: Antarctic Peninsula; palaeoclimate; Holocene; marine; isotopes.

The breakup of Gondwana is manifested by coeval early Jurassic Karoo magmatism in South Africa and East Antarctica. In South Africa, the large volumes of volcanic rocks of the adjoining Lebombo and Mwenetzi-Save monoclines represent a volcanic rift margin, and in East Antarctica, a corresponding feature, the Explora Wedge is buried below sediments and floating ice shelves on the continental margin of Dronning Maud Land. We use the seismic vibrator source to explore the sub-ice geology in Antarctica, and the new seismic reflection and available regional aeromagnetic data enable us to outline a dogleg landward extent of the Explora Wedge in Dronning Maud Land. The congruent inboard wedge geometries on the two continents define a high quality constraint, which facilitate for the first time, a geologically consistent and tight reconstruction of Africa relative to East Antarctica within Gondwana. The uncertainties in correlations of major geological features (mobile belts) from one continent to the other may now be of the order of ten's of kilometers rather than hundreds of kilometers.

Basal melt is a major cause of ice shelf thinning affecting the stability of the ice shelf and reducing its buttressing effect on the inland ice. The Fimbul ice shelf (FIS) in Dronning Maud Land (DML), East Antarctica, is fed by the fast-flowing Jutulstraumen glacier, responsible for 10% of ice discharge from the DML sector of the ice sheet. Current estimates of the basal melt rates of the FIS come from regional ocean models, autosub measurements, and satellite observations, which vary considerably. This discrepancy hampers evaluation of the stability of the Jutulstraumen catchment. Here, we present estimates of basal melt rates of the FIS using ground-based interferometric radar. We find a low average basal melt rate on the order of 1 m/yr, with the highest rates located at the ice shelf front, which extends beyond the continental shelf break. Furthermore, our results provide evidence for a significant seasonal variability.

Traditional methods of deriving temporal variability of Antarctic ice-shelf elevation from satellite altimetry use a fixed (“Eulerian”) reference frame, where the measured changes include advection of ice thickness gradients between measurement epochs. We present a new method which removes advection effects by using an independent velocity field to compare elevations in a moving (“Lagrangian”) reference frame. Applying the technique to ICESat laser altimetry for the period 2003–2009 over the two largest Antarctic ice shelves, Ross and Filchner-Ronne, we show that the Lagrangian approach reduces the variability of derived elevation changes by about 50% compared to the Eulerian approach and reveals clearer spatial patterns of elevation change. The method simplifies the process of estimating basal mass budget from the residual of all other processes that contribute to ice-shelf elevation changes. We use field data and ICESat measurements over ice rises and the grounded ice sheet to account for surface accumulation and changes in firn air content, and remove the effect of ice-flow divergence using surface velocity and ice thickness data. The results show highest basal melt rates (>5 m a−1) near the deep grounding lines of major ice streams, but smaller melt rates (<5 m a−1) near the ice-shelf fronts are equally important to total meltwater production since they occur over larger areas. Integrating over the entire ice-shelf areas, we obtain basal mass budgets of −50 ± 64 Gt a−1 for Ross and −124 ± 66 Gt a−1 for Filchner-Ronne, with changes in firn air content as the largest error source.

Nearly three decades of stable isotope ratios and surface mass balance (SMB) data from eight shallow firn cores retrieved at Fimbul Ice Shelf, East Antarctica, in the Austral summers 2009–2011 have been investigated. An additional longer core drilled in 2000/2001 extends the series back to the early eighteenth century. Isotope ratios and SMB from the stacked record of all cores were also related to instrumental temperature data from Neumayer Station on Ekström Ice Shelf. Since the second half of the twentieth century, the SMB shows a statistically significant negative trend, whereas the δ18O of the cores shows a significant positive trend. No trend is found in air temperature at the nearest suitable weather station, Neumayer (available since 1981). This does not correspond to the statistically significant positive trend in Southern Annular Mode (SAM) index, which is usually associated with a cooling of East Antarctica. SAM index and SMB are negatively correlated, which might be explained by a decrease in meridional exchange of energy and moisture leading to lower precipitation amounts. Future monitoring of climate change on the sensitive Antarctic ice shelves is necessary to assess its consequences for sea level change.

The effects of nunataks on temperature profiles and wind patterns are studied using simulations from the Weather Research and Forecasting model. Simulations are compared to hourly observations from an automatic weather station located at the Troll Research Station in Dronning Maud Land. Areas of bare ground have been implemented in the model, and the simulations correspond well with meteorological measurements acquired during the 4 day simulation period. The nunataks are radiatively heated during daytime, and free convection occurs in the overlying atmospheric boundary layer. The inflow below the updraft forces strong horizontal convergence at the surface, whereas weaker divergence appears aloft. In a control run with a completely ice-covered surface, the convection is absent. In situ observations carried out by a remotely controlled balloon and a small model airplane compare well with model temperature profiles, but these are only available over the ice field upwind to the nunatak.