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. Surface snow density is an important variable for the surface mass balanceand energy budget. It evolves according to meteorological conditions, inparticular, snowfall, wind, and temperature, but the physical processesgoverning atmospheric influence on snow are not fully understood. A reason isthat no systematic observation is available on a continental scale. Here, weuse the passive microwave observations from AMSR-E satellite to retrieve thesurface snow density at Dome C on the East Antarctic Plateau. The retrievalmethod is based on the difference of surface reflections between horizontallyand vertically polarized brightness temperatures at 37 GHz, highlighted bythe computation of the polarization ratio, which is related to surface snowdensity. The relationship has been obtained with a microwave emissionradiative transfer model (DMRT-ML). The retrieved density, approximatelyrepresentative of the topmost 3 cm of the snowpack, compares well with insitu measurements. The difference between mean in situ measurements and meanretrieved density is 26.2 kg m −3 , which is within typical in situmeasurement uncertainties. We apply the retrieval method to derive the timeseries over the period 2002–2011. The results show a marked and persistentpluri-annual decrease of about 10 kg m −3  yr −1 , in addition toatmosphere-related seasonal, weekly, and daily density variations. This trendis confirmed by independent active microwave observations from the ENVISATand QuikSCAT satellites, though the link to the density is more difficult toestablish. However, no related pluri-annual change in meteorologicalconditions has been found to explain such a trend in snow density. Furtherwork will concern the extension of the method to the continental scale.

Marked decrease in the near-surface snow density retrieved by AMSR-E satellite at Dome C, Antarctica, between 2002 and 2011