Glaciological settings and recent mass balance of Blaskimen Island in Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica

The ice-shelf-fringed coast of Dronning Maud Land in East Antarctica contains numerous ice rises that influence the dynamics and mass balance of the region. However, only a few of these ice rises have been investigated in detail. Here, we present field measurements of Blaskimen Island, an isle-type ice rise adjacent to Fimbul Ice Shelf. This ice rise is largely dome shaped, with a pronounced ridge extending to the south-west from its summit (410m a.s.l.). Its bed is mostly flat and about 100m below the current sea level. Shallow radar-detected isochrones dated with a firn core reveal that the surface mass balance is higher on the south-eastern (upwind) slope than on the north-western (downwind) slope by similar to 37 %, and this pattern has persisted for at least the past decade. Moreover, arches in radar stratigraphy suggest that the summit of the ice rise has been stable for similar to 600 years. Ensemble estimates of the mass balance using the input-output method show that this ice rise has thickened by 0.12-0.37m ice equivalent per year over the past decade.