Simulations of blowing Snow over Antarctica

ABSTRACT: The regional climate model MAR has been used to simulate transport of snow by the wind in Adélie Land, Antarctica, over a small domain (500 x 500 km2) and with a fine horizontal resolution (5 km). Simulation of wind and temperature in the Surface Boundary Layer (SBL) for January 2011 agrees with the observation, but the horizontal flux of blowing snow is underestimated. The set-up of the model over the whole antarctic ice sheet with an horizontal resolution of 40 km exhibits a contribution of the transport to the surface mass balance which that may be much larger than previously estimated