Brief communication: CMIP6 does not suggest any circulation change over Greenland in summer by 2100

• Main Authors: Delhasse, Alison, Hanna, Edward, Kittel, Christoph, Fettweis, Xavier
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: Greenland; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2019-332; https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2019-332/

The Greenland blocking index (GBI), an indicator of the synoptic-scale circulation over Greenland, has been anomalously positive during summers since the late 1990s. Such changes in atmospheric circulation have led to an increase in Greenland summer temperatures, a decrease in cloud cover and greater surface melt. The GBI is therefore a key indicator of melting and surface mass balance variability over the Greenland ice sheet. However, the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) models do not represent any increase in GBI as suggested by observations. Until 2100, no significant long-term trend in the GBI, and therefore no circulation changes, are projected. In this study the new generation of CMIP6 Earth-system models is evaluated in order to analyze the evolution of the future GBI. All CMIP5 and CMIP6 projections reveal the same trend towards a decrease of the GBI until 2100 and no model reproduces the strong increase in GBI observed over the last few decades. Significant melting events related to a highly positive GBI, as observed this summer 2019, are still not considered by CMIP6 models and therefore the projected surface melt increase of the ice sheet is likely to be underestimated if such circulation changes persist in the next decades.