Brief communication: Evaluation of the near-surface climate in ERA5 over the Greenland Ice Sheet
The ERA5 reanalysis, recently made available by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), is a new reanalysis product at a high resolution replacing ERA-Interim and is considered to provide the best climate reanalysis over Greenland to date. However, so far little is known abou...
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ftcopernicus:oai:publications.copernicus.org:tc76076 2023-05-15T15:09:57+02:00 Brief communication: Evaluation of the near-surface climate in ERA5 over the Greenland Ice Sheet Delhasse, Alison Kittel, Christoph Amory, Charles Hofer, Stefan As, Dirk S. Fausto, Robert Fettweis, Xavier 2020-03-12 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-957-2020 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/957/2020/ eng eng doi:10.5194/tc-14-957-2020 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/957/2020/ eISSN: 1994-0424 Text 2020 ftcopernicus https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-957-2020 2020-07-20T16:22:21Z The ERA5 reanalysis, recently made available by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), is a new reanalysis product at a high resolution replacing ERA-Interim and is considered to provide the best climate reanalysis over Greenland to date. However, so far little is known about the performance of ERA5 over the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS). In this study, we compare the near-surface climate from the new ERA5 reanalysis to ERA-Interim, the Arctic System Reanalysis (ASR) as well as to a state-of-the-art polar regional climate model (MAR). The results show (1) that ERA5 does not outperform ERA-Interim significantly when compared with near-surface climate observations over GrIS, but ASR better models the near-surface temperature than both ERA reanalyses. (2) Polar regional climate models (e.g., MAR) are still a useful tool to downscale the GrIS climate compared to ERA5, as in particular the near-surface temperature in summer has a key role for representing snow and ice processes such as the surface melt. However, assimilating satellite data and using a more recent radiative scheme enable both ERA and ASR reanalyses to represent more satisfactorily than MAR the downward solar and infrared fluxes. (3) MAR near-surface climate is not affected when forced at its lateral boundaries by either ERA5 or ERA-Interim. Therefore, forcing polar regional climate models with ERA5 starting from 1950 will enable long and homogeneous surface mass balance reconstructions. Text Arctic Greenland Ice Sheet Copernicus Publications: E-Journals Arctic Greenland The Cryosphere 14 3 957 965 |
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Open Polar |
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Copernicus Publications: E-Journals |
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ftcopernicus |
language |
English |
description |
The ERA5 reanalysis, recently made available by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), is a new reanalysis product at a high resolution replacing ERA-Interim and is considered to provide the best climate reanalysis over Greenland to date. However, so far little is known about the performance of ERA5 over the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS). In this study, we compare the near-surface climate from the new ERA5 reanalysis to ERA-Interim, the Arctic System Reanalysis (ASR) as well as to a state-of-the-art polar regional climate model (MAR). The results show (1) that ERA5 does not outperform ERA-Interim significantly when compared with near-surface climate observations over GrIS, but ASR better models the near-surface temperature than both ERA reanalyses. (2) Polar regional climate models (e.g., MAR) are still a useful tool to downscale the GrIS climate compared to ERA5, as in particular the near-surface temperature in summer has a key role for representing snow and ice processes such as the surface melt. However, assimilating satellite data and using a more recent radiative scheme enable both ERA and ASR reanalyses to represent more satisfactorily than MAR the downward solar and infrared fluxes. (3) MAR near-surface climate is not affected when forced at its lateral boundaries by either ERA5 or ERA-Interim. Therefore, forcing polar regional climate models with ERA5 starting from 1950 will enable long and homogeneous surface mass balance reconstructions. |
format |
Text |
author |
Delhasse, Alison Kittel, Christoph Amory, Charles Hofer, Stefan As, Dirk S. Fausto, Robert Fettweis, Xavier |
spellingShingle |
Delhasse, Alison Kittel, Christoph Amory, Charles Hofer, Stefan As, Dirk S. Fausto, Robert Fettweis, Xavier Brief communication: Evaluation of the near-surface climate in ERA5 over the Greenland Ice Sheet |
author_facet |
Delhasse, Alison Kittel, Christoph Amory, Charles Hofer, Stefan As, Dirk S. Fausto, Robert Fettweis, Xavier |
author_sort |
Delhasse, Alison |
title |
Brief communication: Evaluation of the near-surface climate in ERA5 over the Greenland Ice Sheet |
title_short |
Brief communication: Evaluation of the near-surface climate in ERA5 over the Greenland Ice Sheet |
title_full |
Brief communication: Evaluation of the near-surface climate in ERA5 over the Greenland Ice Sheet |
title_fullStr |
Brief communication: Evaluation of the near-surface climate in ERA5 over the Greenland Ice Sheet |
title_full_unstemmed |
Brief communication: Evaluation of the near-surface climate in ERA5 over the Greenland Ice Sheet |
title_sort |
brief communication: evaluation of the near-surface climate in era5 over the greenland ice sheet |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-957-2020 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/957/2020/ |
geographic |
Arctic Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Greenland |
genre |
Arctic Greenland Ice Sheet |
genre_facet |
Arctic Greenland Ice Sheet |
op_source |
eISSN: 1994-0424 |
op_relation |
doi:10.5194/tc-14-957-2020 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/957/2020/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-957-2020 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
14 |
container_issue |
3 |
container_start_page |
957 |
op_container_end_page |
965 |
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1766341035791745024 |