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Abstract

The Antarctic Peninsula (AP) has been accompanied by rapid ice loss during the past few decades. This mass loss has resulted in retreat and collapse of ice shelves and glacial discharge to the surrounding oceans. Most of the recent studies suggest that the AP mass loss is primarily attributed to the changes in westerly wind associated with shifting of Southern Annular Mode (SAM) to positive phase. The Pacific Oscillations i.e. El Niño Southern Oscillations (ENSO) and Pacific Decadal Oscillations (PDO) and their teleconnections to Antarctica through a Rossby wave train originating in the tropical Pacific influence Antarctic temperature could be another factor contributing to the melting and ice mass loss from AP. Assessing the role of SAM and Pacific oscillations on AP mass loss and investigating their relationship are hampered due to lack of long-term mass loss record. The available ice core records from AP allow us to investigate the relationships between the AP mass loss and large‐scale atmospheric oscillations. Therefore, we have reconstructed mass loss record for the past two centuries based on multiple ice core accumulation records. Our reconstructed AP mass loss record (~1850 to 1997 CE) shows variability at ENSO and PDO bands and significant correlation with instrumental SAM index. The decadal mass loss shows strong relation with PDO whereas interannual mass loss is influenced by ENSO-SAM coupling. The interannual variability shows dramatic increase in the recent decades. These key findings have important implications for constraining AP ice sheet mass balance in future.