Extremes of surface snow grains change in East Antarctica and their relationship with meteorological conditions

This study explores the grain size seasonal variations 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 of 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/ridge situation in the proximity of the onsets of the summer increase of the grain size, conveying the relatively warm and moist air coming from the mid latitudes, often associated with atmospheric rivers. If weak wind and low temperature conditions 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 the East Antarctica and their impact on the physical properties of the ice sheet surface, with a co-occurrence of atmospheric rivers and seasonal changes of the grain size significant over 95 %.