The recent warming trend in North Greenland

peer reviewed The Arctic is among the fastest warming regions on Earth, but it is also one with limited spatial coverage of multi-decadal instrumental surface air temperature measurements. Consequently, atmospheric reanalyses are relatively unconstrained in this region, resulting in a large spread o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical Research Letters
Main Authors: Orsi, A., Kawamura, K., Masson-Delmotte, V., Fettweis, Xavier, Box, J., Dahl-Jensen, D., Clow, G., Landais, A., Severinghaus, J.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: American Geophysical Union 2017
Subjects:
Physical
chemical
mathematical & earth Sciences
Earth sciences & physical geography
Physique
chimie
mathématiques & sciences de la terre
Sciences de la terre & géographie physique
Arctic
Greenland
North Greenland
Online Access:https://orbi.uliege.be/handle/2268/209494
https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL072212
Description
Summary:peer reviewed The Arctic is among the fastest warming regions on Earth, but it is also one with limited spatial coverage of multi-decadal instrumental surface air temperature measurements. Consequently, atmospheric reanalyses are relatively unconstrained in this region, resulting in a large spread of estimated 30-year recent warming trends, which limits their use to investigate the mechanisms responsible for this trend. Here, we present a surface temperature reconstruction over 1982-2011 at NEEM (51∘ W, 77∘ N), in North Greenland, based on the inversion of borehole temperature and inert gas isotope data. We find that NEEM has warmed by 2.7±0.33∘C over the past 30 years, from the long-term 1900-1970 average of -28.55±0.29∘C. The warming trend is principally caused by an increase in downward longwave heat flux. Atmospheric reanalyses underestimate this trend by 17%, underlining the need for more in situ observations to validate reanalyses.

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