West Greenland ice sheet retreat history reveals elevated precipitation during the Holocene thermal maximum
We investigate changing precipitation patterns in the Kangerlussuaq region of west central Greenland during the Holocene thermal maximum, using a new chronology of ice sheet terminus position through the Holocene and a novel inverse modeling approach based on the unscented transform (UT). The UT is...
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ftcopernicus:oai:publications.copernicus.org:tcd76943 2023-05-15T15:04:03+02:00 West Greenland ice sheet retreat history reveals elevated precipitation during the Holocene thermal maximum Downs, Jacob Johnson, Jesse Briner, Jason Young, Nicolás Lesnek, Alia Cuzzone, Josh 2019-06-25 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2019-129 https://www.the-cryosphere-discuss.net/tc-2019-129/ eng eng doi:10.5194/tc-2019-129 https://www.the-cryosphere-discuss.net/tc-2019-129/ eISSN: 1994-0424 Text 2019 ftcopernicus https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2019-129 2019-12-24T09:49:00Z We investigate changing precipitation patterns in the Kangerlussuaq region of west central Greenland during the Holocene thermal maximum, using a new chronology of ice sheet terminus position through the Holocene and a novel inverse modeling approach based on the unscented transform (UT). The UT is applied to estimate changes in annual precipitation in order to reduce the misfit between modeled and observed terminus positions. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the UT for time-dependent data assimilation, highlighting its low computational cost and trivial parallel implementation. Our results indicate that Holocene warming coincided with elevated precipitation, without which modeled retreat in the Kangerlussuaq region is more rapid than suggested by observations. Less conclusive is if high temperatures during the HTM were specifically associated with a transient increase in precipitation, as the results depend on the assumed temperature history. The importance of precipitation in controlling ice sheet extent during the Holocene underscores the importance of Arctic sea ice loss and changing precipitation patterns on the future stability of the GrIS. Text Arctic Greenland Ice Sheet Kangerlussuaq Sea ice Copernicus Publications: E-Journals Arctic Greenland Kangerlussuaq ENVELOPE(-55.633,-55.633,72.633,72.633) |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Copernicus Publications: E-Journals |
op_collection_id |
ftcopernicus |
language |
English |
description |
We investigate changing precipitation patterns in the Kangerlussuaq region of west central Greenland during the Holocene thermal maximum, using a new chronology of ice sheet terminus position through the Holocene and a novel inverse modeling approach based on the unscented transform (UT). The UT is applied to estimate changes in annual precipitation in order to reduce the misfit between modeled and observed terminus positions. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the UT for time-dependent data assimilation, highlighting its low computational cost and trivial parallel implementation. Our results indicate that Holocene warming coincided with elevated precipitation, without which modeled retreat in the Kangerlussuaq region is more rapid than suggested by observations. Less conclusive is if high temperatures during the HTM were specifically associated with a transient increase in precipitation, as the results depend on the assumed temperature history. The importance of precipitation in controlling ice sheet extent during the Holocene underscores the importance of Arctic sea ice loss and changing precipitation patterns on the future stability of the GrIS. |
format |
Text |
author |
Downs, Jacob Johnson, Jesse Briner, Jason Young, Nicolás Lesnek, Alia Cuzzone, Josh |
spellingShingle |
Downs, Jacob Johnson, Jesse Briner, Jason Young, Nicolás Lesnek, Alia Cuzzone, Josh West Greenland ice sheet retreat history reveals elevated precipitation during the Holocene thermal maximum |
author_facet |
Downs, Jacob Johnson, Jesse Briner, Jason Young, Nicolás Lesnek, Alia Cuzzone, Josh |
author_sort |
Downs, Jacob |
title |
West Greenland ice sheet retreat history reveals elevated precipitation during the Holocene thermal maximum |
title_short |
West Greenland ice sheet retreat history reveals elevated precipitation during the Holocene thermal maximum |
title_full |
West Greenland ice sheet retreat history reveals elevated precipitation during the Holocene thermal maximum |
title_fullStr |
West Greenland ice sheet retreat history reveals elevated precipitation during the Holocene thermal maximum |
title_full_unstemmed |
West Greenland ice sheet retreat history reveals elevated precipitation during the Holocene thermal maximum |
title_sort |
west greenland ice sheet retreat history reveals elevated precipitation during the holocene thermal maximum |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2019-129 https://www.the-cryosphere-discuss.net/tc-2019-129/ |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-55.633,-55.633,72.633,72.633) |
geographic |
Arctic Greenland Kangerlussuaq |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Greenland Kangerlussuaq |
genre |
Arctic Greenland Ice Sheet Kangerlussuaq Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Arctic Greenland Ice Sheet Kangerlussuaq Sea ice |
op_source |
eISSN: 1994-0424 |
op_relation |
doi:10.5194/tc-2019-129 https://www.the-cryosphere-discuss.net/tc-2019-129/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2019-129 |
_version_ |
1766335868446965760 |