Brief Communication: annual large-scale atmospheric circulation reconstructed from a data assimilation framework cannot explain local East Antarctic ice rises’ surface mass balance records

Abstract. Ice cores are influenced by local processes that alter surface mass balance (SMB) records. To evaluate if large-scale atmospheric circulation explains contrasted SMB trends at eight East Antarctic ice rises, we assimilated ice core SMB records within a high-resolution downscaled atmospheric model, while incorporating radar-derived SMB constraints to quantify local observation errors. The reconstruction captures the diverse variability from SMB records but may over-fit by introducing unrealistic wind spatial heterogeneity. While local errors are quantified, they might not cover all uncertainties. Moreover, small-scale wind circulation, unresolved in the reconstruction, could significantly affect local ice core SMB signals.