Very high resolution surface mass balance of Svalbard with the regional climate model MAR

• Main Authors: Lang, Charlotte, Fettweis, Xavier
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: Svalbard; Surface mass balance; regional climate model; Physical; chemical; mathematical & earth Sciences; Earth sciences & physical geography; Physique; chimie; mathématiques & sciences de la terre; Sciences de la terre & géographie physique; Spitsbergen
• Online Access: https://orbi.uliege.be/handle/2268/192550; https://orbi.uliege.be/bitstream/2268/192550/1/lang_EGU_2015.pdf

We present climate and surface mass balance (SMB) results over Svalbard simulated by a new version of the regional climate MAR model allowing to reach ∼km resolution without highly time-consuming runs. Spitsbergen, the largest island of the Svalbard archipelago, has a very hilly topography and, as the SMB strongly depends on the local topography and ice distribution, we need a high spatial resolution to accurately represent the SMB of Svalbard and its complex spatial distribution. However, higher resolution simulations are also very time consuming. That is why we have developed a new version of the MAR model in which the atmospheric module runs at a resolution of 7.5 km and the snow/ice module runs at a resolution of 3.75 km. Simulations over 1960-2014 forced by ERA show better agreement with SMB observations compared to our recent 10 km resolution recently published results.