Local Weather Conditions Create Structural Differences between Shallow Firn Columns at Summit, Greenland and WAIS Divide, Antarctica

Abstract

Understanding how physical characteristics of polar firn vary with depth assists in interpreting paleoclimate records and predicting meltwater infiltration and storage in the firn column. Spatial heterogeneities in firn structure arise from variable surface climate conditions that create differences in firn grain growth and packing arrangements. Commonly, estimates of how these properties change with depth are made by modeling profiles using long-term estimates of air temperature and accumulation rate. Here, we compare surface meteorology and firn density and permeability in the depth range of 3.5–11 m of the firn column from cores collected at Summit, Greenland and WAIS Divide, Antarctica, two sites with the same average accumulation rate and mean annual air temperature. We show that firn at WAIS Divide is consistently denser than firn at Summit. However, the difference in bulk permeability of the two profiles is less statistically significant. We argue that differences in local weather conditions, such as mean summer temperatures, daily temperature variations, and yearly wind speeds, create the density discrepancies. Our results are consistent with previous results showing density is not a good indicator of firn permeability within the shallow firn column. Future modeling efforts should account for these weather variables when estimating firn structure with depth.

Keywords

• firn density
• firn permeability
• polar meteorology
• Greenland ice sheet
• West Antarctic ice sheet