Surface Mass Balance Controlled by Local Surface Slope in Inland Antarctica: Implications for Ice‐Sheet Mass Balance and Oldest Ice Delineation in Dome Fuji

The limited number of surface mass balance (SMB) observations in the Antarctic inland hampers estimates ice-sheet contribution to global sea level and locations with million-year-old ice. We present finely resolved SMB over past three centuries a low-accumulation region significant depth hoar formation on Dome Fuji derived from ∼1,100 km microwave radar stratigraphy dated firn core. regional-mean 264 years is estimated ∼22.5 ± 3.3 kg m−2 a−1, but large local variability up 30%. found that negatively correlated slope at scales few hundred meters, resulting anomalous zones low which represent as much 8–10% total plateau if SMB-slope relationship more widely valid. This impact should be investigated further improve sea-level contribution.