Estimation of the Sea Level Rise by 2100 Resulting from Changes in the Surface Mass Balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet

• Main Authors: Fettweis, Xavier, Belleflamme, Alexandre, Erpicum, Michel, Franco, Bruno, Nicolay, Samuel
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Intech 2011
• Subjects: Physical; chemical; mathematical & earth Sciences; Earth sciences & physical geography; Physique; chimie; mathématiques & sciences de la terre; Sciences de la terre & géographie physique; Greenland; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://orbi.uliege.be/handle/2268/98831; https://orbi.uliege.be/bitstream/2268/98831/1/InTech-Estimation_of_the_sea_level_rise_by_2100_resulting_from_changes_in_the_surface_mass_balance_of_the_greenland_ice_sheet.pdf

We present here future projections of the Greenland climate performed by the regional climate model MAR coupled with a snow model and forced by two scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions from the global model CanESM2 of the next IPCC assessment report (AR5). Knowing that MAR forced by CanESM2 over the current climate (1970-1999) compares well with the reference MAR simulation performed by using the ERA-40 reanalysis as forcing, this gives us confidence in our future projections. For the RCP4.5 scenario (optimistic) and respectively RCP8.5 scenario (pessimistic), MAR projects a sea level rise in 2100 of 6.5 +/- 1.5 cm and respectively 14+/-2 cm as result of increasing surface melt of the Greenland ice sheet over 2000-2100. It is true that MAR projects a small increase of snowfall in the winter because the atmosphere will be warmer and therefore can contain more water vapor. But this is not sufficient to offset the acceleration of melt, notably for the scenario RCP8.5 which projects an increase of 10 °C in 2100 above the ice sheet. This work fits in the ICE2SEA project (http://www.ice2sea.eu) of the 7th Framework Program (FP7) which aims to improve the projections of the continental ice melting contribution to sea level rise.