Interaction of katabatic wind and local surface mass balance at Scharffenbergbotnen Blue Ice Area, Antarctica

Abstract

Abstract. We model the wind causing the formation of a blue ice area in Scharffenbergbotnen valley, Antarctica, using the finite element code Elmer. The high resolution numerical simulations of the local wind flow from katabatic wind fronts show highly spatially variable wind impact patterns and good congruence between places of enhanced wind-impact and the blue ice area. The results were fortuitously confirmed by the destruction of a field camp located in a high wind speed area and its subsequent redistribution to low velocity areas. In addition we perform wind simulations on an altered glacier geometry that resembles the thicker ice cover at the Late Glacial Maximum (LGM). These simulations indicate that the pronounced spatial wind-impact patterns depend on present day geometry and did not occur during the LGM. This leads to the conclusion that the formation of the blue ice area that is situated more inside the valley of Scharffenbergbotnen started only after the lowering of the ice surface, later than the LGM. Experiments with smoothed surface topography suggest that detailed positions of the high wind regions and hence individual blue ice fields, may have varied as the ice sheet lowered. The experiments and the field observations are consistent with localized violent katabatic events, rather than synoptic scale storms, playing the dominant role in the formation and maintenance of this, and perhaps many blue ice areas.