AWACA

Atmospheric WAter Cycle over Antarctica: past, present and future – AWACA

The European Union-funded AWACA project strives to answer the following question: How does the atmospheric water cycle work in Antarctica? AWACA will ultimately improve our understanding of how snow in Antarctica forms, falls and in what quantity. To understand and predict the fate of atmospheric water including isotopes all along the tropospheric column, the project will apply a consistent and comprehensive combined observation and modelling framework. AWACA will also combine adapted/designed instruments to form fully autonomous observation platforms deployed at several sites, including surface meteorology, isotopic composition and atmospheric remote sensing, along a 1 100 km coast-to-plateau transect aligned with the typical moisture-carrying air mass trajectories. The findings will help scientists gain a deeper understanding of past, present and future variabilities of the atmospheric branch of the water cycle above Antarctica.

Platform: Land-based

Location: 1100-km long transect with 5 instrumented sites in between Dumont d’Urville at the coast and Concordia in inner Antarctica.

Timing: Sep. 2021 and will end in Aug. 2028

Contacts

Alexis Berne – alexis.berne@epfl.ch

Thomas Dubos – dubos@lmd.ipsl.fr

Christophe Genthon – christophe.genthon@cnrs.fr

Valérie Masson-Delmotte – valerie.masson@lsce.ipsl.fr

Links:

https://awaca.ipsl.fr/en/atmospheric-water-cycle-over-antarctica