Quantifying the Impacts of Atmospheric Processes on the Behaviour of Antarctic Ice

Abstract

Antarctic ice is essential for our understanding of global climate. Sea ice a ects and is a ected by atmospheric temperature and the radiative balance of our planet as it has a high albedo and covers large areas of the ocean around Antarctica. Land ice in Antarctica, speci cally the ice sheets, store a large amount of water as ice, the melting of which would be consequential for our planet, signi cantly increasing global sea levels. Therefore understanding what drives the trends in Antarctic ice is imperative. This thesis adds to this understanding by using linear regressions and congruent trends, connecting the trends of Antarctic ice with di erent environmental variables. Surface temperature is the primary driver for sea ice, and the drivers of change in land ice are inconclusive. Temperature is demonstrated to be primarily driven by changes in Surface Radiative Forcing (SRF). For example, a decrease in surface temperature over the Ross Sea Region (RSR) between 1979 and 2019 can be shown to drive an increase in sea ice at the same location throughout the same time. The temperature changes can be shown to be driven by changes in SRF in the same manner.