ALBERT

Description: The South Shetland Islands are located at the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula (AP). This region was subject to extreme warming trends in the atmospheric surface layer. Surface air temperature increased about 3K in 50 years, concurrent with retreating glacier fronts, an increase in melt areas, ice surface lowering and rapid break-up and disintegration of ice shelves. The positive trend in surface air temperature has currently come to a halt. Observed surface air temperature lapse rates show a high variability during 5 winter months (standard deviations up to 1:0K=100m), and a distinct spatial heterogeneity reflecting the impact of synoptic weather patterns. The increased mesocyclonic activity during the winter time over the past decades in the study area results in intensified advection of warm, moist air with high temperatures and rain, and leads to melt conditions on the ice cap, fixating surface air temperatures to the melting point. Its impact on winter accumulation results in the observed negative mass balance estimates. Six years of continuous glaciological measurements on mass balance stake 10 transects as well as five years of climatological data time series are presented and a spatially distributed glacier energy balance melt model adapted and run based on these multi-year data sets. The glaciological model is generally in good agreement, except for climatic conditions promoting snow drift by high wind speeds, turbulence-driven snow deposition and snow layer erosion by rain. No drift can be seen over the course of the 5-year model run period. The winter accumulation does not suffice to compensate for the high variability in summer ablation. The results are analyzed to assess changes in melt water input to 15 the coastal waters, specific glacier mass balance and the equilibrium line altitude. The Fourcade Glacier catchment drains into Potter cove, has an area of 23.6 km2 and is to 93.8% glacierized. Annual discharge from Fourcade Glacier into Potter Cove is estimated to q = (25 pm 6) hm3/yr with the standard deviation of 8% annotating the high interannual variability. Published studies suggest rather stable conditions of slightly negative glacier mass balance until the mid 80's with an ELA of approx. 150 m. The average equilibrium line altitude (ELA) calculated from own glaciological observations on Fourcade Glacier over the time period 2010 to 2015 amounts to ELA = (260 pm 20) m. The calculated accumulation area ratio suggests dramatic changes in the future extension of the inland ice cap for the South Shetland Islands.