Surface melting on polar ice sheets occurs as temperatures increase.
By looking at a variety of records of past surface-melting events in Antarctica, we hope to reveal changes in the occurrence of especially high temperatures. Melting on the surface of an ice sheet can be measured in many ways. Space-based microwave sensors record the occurrence of liquid water or refrozen ice layers in the near surface. These different measures of melt occurrence are not identical and are presently not calibrated well to each other. Our project will enable us to determine how different measures of melting are related to each other.