OBJECTIVES:

The main objectives:

• Explore atmosphere-ocean-ice interactions over seasonal to centennial timescales.
• Establish the role of sea ice on Antarctic surface mass balance (SMB) over seasonal to centennial timescales.
• Quantify the role of winds and atmospheric circulation on SMB variability.

Key deliverables:

• Improve existing SMB reconstructions as well as its drivers, using a combination of new paleo records and data-assimilation approaches.
• Initiate new data compilations, based on isotope and chemical data from high-resolution paleo-archives (ice core, marine sediments, peat…) to reconstruct past sea ice and atmospheric circulation.
• Refine the interpretation and the estimate of the uncertainty of existing records.
• Test the compatibility between the signal reconstructed from different records, in particular between the oceanic and continental records, and between models and observations.
• Understand the atmosphere-ocean-ice interactions over seasonal to centennial timescales.