Eemian Greenland SMB strongly sensitive to model choice ...

• Main Authors: Plach, Andreas, Nisancioglu, Kerim H., Le Clec'h, Sebastien, Born, Andreas, Langebroek, Petra M., Guo, Chuncheng, Imhof, Michael, Stocker, Thomas F.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: ETH Zurich 2018
• Subjects: Greenland; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000302367; http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/302367

Understanding the behavior of the Greenland ice sheet in a warmer climate, and particularly its surface mass balance (SMB), is important for assessing Greenland's potential contribution to future sea level rise. The Eemian interglacial period, the most recent warmer-than-present period in Earth's history approximately 125000 years ago, provides an analogue for a warm summer climate over Greenland. The Eemian is characterized by a positive Northern Hemisphere summer insolation anomaly, which complicates Eemian SMB calculations based on positive degree day estimates. In this study, we use Eemian global and regional climate simulations in combination with three types of SMB models – a simple positive degree day, an intermediate complexity, and a full surface energy balance model – to evaluate the importance of regional climate and model complexity for estimates of Greenland's SMB. We find that all SMB models perform well under the relatively cool pre-industrial and late Eemian. For the relatively warm early ... : Climate of the Past, 14 (10) ...