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AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Keywords

  • borehole thermometry
  • Rutford Ice Stream
  • recent warming

Index Terms

  • Global Change: Regional climate change
  • Computational Geophysics: Modeling
  • Cryosphere: Thermodynamics
  • Atmospheric Processes: Climate change and variability
  • Geographic Location: Antarctica

Abstract

Rapid recent warming on Rutford Ice Stream, West Antarctica, from borehole thermometry

B. E. Barrett

School of the Environment and Society, Swansea University, Swansea, UK

K. W. Nicholls

British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK

T. Murray

School of the Environment and Society, Swansea University, Swansea, UK

A. M. Smith

British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK

D. G. Vaughan

British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK

The Antarctic Peninsula has warmed faster than the global average rate of warming during the last century. Due to limited availability of long term meteorological records, the geographical extent of this rapid warming is poorly defined. We collected borehole temperature measurements in the upper 300 m of Rutford Ice Stream, West Antarctica, and employed an inverse modeling scheme with a heat diffusion-advection equation to determine the recent surface temperature history of the borehole position. Our results reveal recent warming of 0.17 ± 0.07°C (decade)−1 since 1930. This result suggests that, at least in an attenuated form, the rapid warming observed over the Antarctic Peninsula extends as far south as Rutford Ice Stream. This result agrees with other recent results that show a warming trend across much of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Received 17 October 2008; accepted 24 December 2008; published 29 January 2009.

Citation: Barrett, B. E., K. W. Nicholls, T. Murray, A. M. Smith, and D. G. Vaughan (2009), Rapid recent warming on Rutford Ice Stream, West Antarctica, from borehole thermometry, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L02708, doi:10.1029/2008GL036369.

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