Brief communication: Impact of common ice mask in surface mass balance estimates over the Antarctic ice sheet

Regional climate models compute ice sheet surface mass balance (SMB) over a mask that defines the area covered by glacier ice, but ice masks have not been harmonised between models. Intercomparison studies of modelled SMB therefore use a common ice mask. The SMB in areas outside the common ice mask,...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Hansen, Nicolaj, Simonsen, Sebastian Bjerregaard, Boberg, Fredrik, Kittel, Christoph, Orr, Andrew, Souverijns, Niels, Wessem, Melchior, Mottram, Ruth
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: 2021
Subjects:
Antarctic
The Antarctic
Antarc*
Ice Sheet
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2021-317
https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2021-317/
Description
Summary:Regional climate models compute ice sheet surface mass balance (SMB) over a mask that defines the area covered by glacier ice, but ice masks have not been harmonised between models. Intercomparison studies of modelled SMB therefore use a common ice mask. The SMB in areas outside the common ice mask, which are typically coastal and high precipitation regions, are discarded. Ice mask differences change integrated SMB by between 40.5 to 140.6 Gt yr −1 , (1.8 % to 6.0 % of ensemble mean SMB), equivalent to the entire Antarctic mass imbalance. We conclude there is a pressing need for a common ice mask protocol.

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