Plausible future freshwater forcing simulations with the standard and high-resolution EC-Earth3

• Main Authors: Jüling, A., Le Bars, D., Lambert, E., Drijfhout, S.
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: Antarctic; Greenland; Southern Ocean; Antarc*; Ice Sheet; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5021539

Freshwater fluxes to the ocean from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are increasing and influencing multiple aspects of the climate response. As temperatures continue to rise, the influence of freshwater from the melting ice sheets will play a bigger and bigger climate role. However, the evolution of these fluxes is usually not well represented in current climate model simulations as ice sheets are not modelled interactively. We develop plausible, future freshwater forcing scenarios for both ice sheets until 2100 and use both standard-resolution (non-eddying) and high-resolution (eddy-permitting) versions of EC-Earth3 to simulate the response to a high emission scenario. We investigate the effect of this additional freshwater on sea ice, ocean heat uptake and circulation, surface temperatures, and sea level. By comparing the simulations to the HighResMIP EC-Earth3 simulations without these additional freshwater fluxes from ice sheet mass loss as well as the EC-Earth contribution to the Southern Ocean Freshwater release model experiments Initiative (SOFIAMIP), we can discern effects of ocean model resolution and freshwater flux amount.