Occurrence frequency of thickness of annual snow accumulation layers at South Pole

This paper describes the frequency analysis of 2000 annual snow accumulation layers at the South Pole. It proposes application of this analysis to objective extraction of meteorological parameters from the South Pole snow accumulation record. We have compared the 200‐year “snow mine” accumulation record of Giovinetto and Schwerdtfeger and a 2000‐layer pit and core record obtained in 1982. Frequency analysis of the number of occurrences of layers with respect to thickness or mass of the layer showed the logarithms of thickness or mass to be normally distributed. This lognormality is quite robust. Arbitrary partitioning of the data by depth or systematic partition of the data by densification or firn‐ice transition does not destroy the lognormality of the accumulation series. The geometric standard deviation of the mass of annual layers was the same as the geometric standard deviation of the thickness of these same layers as the layers densified from firn to ice. This agrees with Kapteyn's theory of transformability of lognormal distributions. We have also compared the snow accumulation and marine aerosol (sodium) accumulation in recent annual layers with the station meteorological record and the surface aerosol record. The amounts of snow and sodium accumulated are proportional to the number of warmings (“salt storms”) in most years of this short record. The accumulation record may be transformable to provide an index of this meridional transport. We propose that the magnitude of snow accumulation, with respect to frequency of that accumulation, provides an objective criterion for comparing individual years of meteorological history and that the geometric standard deviation of accumulation provides an objective index for estimation of climatic fluctuation during the period of accumulation.