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During atmospheric river (AR) landfalls on the Antarctic ice sheet, the high waviness of the circumpolar polar jet stream allows for subtropical air masses to be advected toward the Antarctic coastline. These rare but high‐impact AR events are highly consequential for the Antarctic mass balance; yet little is known about the various atmospheric dynamical components determining their life cycle. By using an AR detection algorithm to retrieve AR landfalls at Dumont d'Urville and non‐AR analogs based on 700 hPa geopotential height, we examined what makes AR landfalls unique and studied the complete life cycle of ARs reaching Dumont d'Urville. ARs form in the mid‐latitudes/subtropics in areas of high surface evaporation, likely in response to tropical deep convection anomalies. These convection anomalies likely lead to Rossby wave trains that help amplify the upper‐tropospheric flow pattern. As the AR approaches Antarctica, condensation of isentropically lifted moisture causes latent heat release that—in conjunction with poleward warm air advection—induces geopotential height rises and anticyclonic upper‐level potential vorticity tendencies downstream. As evidenced by a blocking index, these tendencies lead to enhanced ridging/blocking that persist beyond the AR landfall time, sustaining warm air advection onto the ice sheet. Finally, we demonstrate a connection between tropopause polar vortices and mid‐latitude cyclogenesis in an AR case study. Overall, the non‐AR analogs reveal that the amplified jet pattern observed during AR landfalls is a result of enhanced poleward moisture transport and associated diabatic heating which is likely impossible to replicate without strong moisture transport. Plain Language Summary: When the polar jet stream that surrounds Antarctica is highly wavy, air masses from the subtropics that are warm and humid are often transported over the ice sheet in the form of atmospheric rivers (ARs). When ARs reach Antarctica, they often bring extreme weather conditions that have large consequences for ice sheet snowfall and surface melt. Here we studied the full life cycle of ARs that reached Dumont d'Urville in East Antarctica and compared these ARs against events with similar profiles of atmospheric circulation. ARs typically form in areas of unusually high surface evaporation and thunderstorm convection in the subtropics. This convection sends Rossby waves toward the Antarctic coastline which help make the polar jet wavier. The amplitude of the polar jet is further enhanced when the moisture that accompanies the ARs condenses over the cooler seas around Antarctica and creates large latent heating. The higher amplitude of the polar jet often results in atmospheric blocks that transport further warm, moist air over the ice sheet even after the AR has made landfall and dissipated. Therefore, extreme weather events over Antarctica like ARs are sensitive to climate changes far from the continent over the subtropical regions. Key Points: Atmospheric rivers have lower‐latitude moisture sources than extratropical cyclones and are likely influenced by tropopause polar vorticesLarge latent heat release from atmospheric river related moisture transport leads to downstream anticyclonic potential vorticity tendenciesThe resultant diabatic heating helps maintain atmospheric blocking after an atmospheric river has dissipated [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the seasonal variations in snow grain size on the East Antarctic Plateau, where dry metamorphism occurs, by using microwave radiometer observations from 2000 to 2022. Local meteorological conditions and large-scale atmospheric phenomena have been considered in order to explain some peculiar changes in the snow grains. We find that the highest ice divide is the region with the largest grain size in the summer, mainly because the wind speed is low. Moreover, some extreme grain size values with respect to the average (over +3σ) were identified. In these cases, the ERA5 reanalysis revealed a high-pressure blocking close to the onsets of the summer increase in the grain size. It channels moisture intrusions from the mid-latitudes, through atmospheric rivers that cause major snowfall events over the plateau. If conditions of weak wind and low temperature occur during the following weeks, dry snow metamorphism is facilitated, leading to grain growth. This determines anomalous high maximums of the snow grain size at the end of summer. These phenomena confirm the importance of moisture intrusion events in East Antarctica and their impact on the physical properties of the ice sheet surface, with a co-occurrence of atmospheric rivers and seasonal changes in the grain size with a significance of over 95 %. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]