Surface-atmosphere decoupling limits accumulation at Summit, Greenland
Despite rapid melting in the coastal regions of the Greenland Ice Sheet, a significant area (~40%) of the ice sheet rarely experiences surface melting. In these regions, the controls on annual accumulation are poorly constrained owing to surface conditions (for example, surface clouds, blowing snow,...
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ftoskarbordeaux:oai:oskar-bordeaux.fr:20.500.12278/34101 2023-05-15T16:26:06+02:00 Surface-atmosphere decoupling limits accumulation at Summit, Greenland BERKELHAMMER, Max NOONE, David STEEN-LARSEN, Hans Christian BAILEY, Adriana COX, Christopher O’NEILL, Michael SCHNEIDER, David STEFFEN, Konrad WHITE, James 2016-04-22 https://oskar-bordeaux.fr/handle/20.500.12278/34101 https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1501704 en eng American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2375-2548 https://oskar-bordeaux.fr/handle/20.500.12278/34101 doi:10.1126/sciadv.1501704 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ Planète et Univers [physics]/Océan Atmosphère Planète et Univers [physics]/Interfaces continentales environnement Article de revue 2016 ftoskarbordeaux https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1501704 2021-05-11T22:30:01Z Despite rapid melting in the coastal regions of the Greenland Ice Sheet, a significant area (~40%) of the ice sheet rarely experiences surface melting. In these regions, the controls on annual accumulation are poorly constrained owing to surface conditions (for example, surface clouds, blowing snow, and surface inversions), which render moisture flux estimates from myriad approaches (that is, eddy covariance, remote sensing, and direct observations) highly uncertain. Accumulation is partially determined by the temperature dependence of saturation vapor pressure, which influences the maximum humidity of air parcels reaching the ice sheet interior. However, independent proxies for surface temperature and accumulation from ice cores show that the response of accumulation to temperature is variable and not generally consistent with a purely thermodynamic control. Using three years of stable water vapor isotope profiles from a high altitude site on the Greenland Ice Sheet, we show that as the boundary layer becomes increasingly stable, a decoupling between the ice sheet and atmosphere occurs. The limited interaction between the ice sheet surface and free tropospheric air reduces the capacity for surface condensation to achieve the rate set by the humidity of the air parcels reaching interior Greenland. The isolation of the surface also acts to recycle sublimated moisture by recondensing it onto fog particles, which returns the moisture back to the surface through gravitational settling. The observations highlight a unique mechanism by which ice sheet mass is conserved, which has implications for understanding both past and future changes in accumulation rate and the isotopic signal in ice cores from Greenland. Other/Unknown Material Greenland Ice Sheet OSKAR Bordeaux (Open Science Knowledge ARchive) Greenland Science Advances 2 4 e1501704 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
OSKAR Bordeaux (Open Science Knowledge ARchive) |
op_collection_id |
ftoskarbordeaux |
language |
English |
topic |
Planète et Univers [physics]/Océan Atmosphère Planète et Univers [physics]/Interfaces continentales environnement |
spellingShingle |
Planète et Univers [physics]/Océan Atmosphère Planète et Univers [physics]/Interfaces continentales environnement BERKELHAMMER, Max NOONE, David STEEN-LARSEN, Hans Christian BAILEY, Adriana COX, Christopher O’NEILL, Michael SCHNEIDER, David STEFFEN, Konrad WHITE, James Surface-atmosphere decoupling limits accumulation at Summit, Greenland |
topic_facet |
Planète et Univers [physics]/Océan Atmosphère Planète et Univers [physics]/Interfaces continentales environnement |
description |
Despite rapid melting in the coastal regions of the Greenland Ice Sheet, a significant area (~40%) of the ice sheet rarely experiences surface melting. In these regions, the controls on annual accumulation are poorly constrained owing to surface conditions (for example, surface clouds, blowing snow, and surface inversions), which render moisture flux estimates from myriad approaches (that is, eddy covariance, remote sensing, and direct observations) highly uncertain. Accumulation is partially determined by the temperature dependence of saturation vapor pressure, which influences the maximum humidity of air parcels reaching the ice sheet interior. However, independent proxies for surface temperature and accumulation from ice cores show that the response of accumulation to temperature is variable and not generally consistent with a purely thermodynamic control. Using three years of stable water vapor isotope profiles from a high altitude site on the Greenland Ice Sheet, we show that as the boundary layer becomes increasingly stable, a decoupling between the ice sheet and atmosphere occurs. The limited interaction between the ice sheet surface and free tropospheric air reduces the capacity for surface condensation to achieve the rate set by the humidity of the air parcels reaching interior Greenland. The isolation of the surface also acts to recycle sublimated moisture by recondensing it onto fog particles, which returns the moisture back to the surface through gravitational settling. The observations highlight a unique mechanism by which ice sheet mass is conserved, which has implications for understanding both past and future changes in accumulation rate and the isotopic signal in ice cores from Greenland. |
format |
Other/Unknown Material |
author |
BERKELHAMMER, Max NOONE, David STEEN-LARSEN, Hans Christian BAILEY, Adriana COX, Christopher O’NEILL, Michael SCHNEIDER, David STEFFEN, Konrad WHITE, James |
author_facet |
BERKELHAMMER, Max NOONE, David STEEN-LARSEN, Hans Christian BAILEY, Adriana COX, Christopher O’NEILL, Michael SCHNEIDER, David STEFFEN, Konrad WHITE, James |
author_sort |
BERKELHAMMER, Max |
title |
Surface-atmosphere decoupling limits accumulation at Summit, Greenland |
title_short |
Surface-atmosphere decoupling limits accumulation at Summit, Greenland |
title_full |
Surface-atmosphere decoupling limits accumulation at Summit, Greenland |
title_fullStr |
Surface-atmosphere decoupling limits accumulation at Summit, Greenland |
title_full_unstemmed |
Surface-atmosphere decoupling limits accumulation at Summit, Greenland |
title_sort |
surface-atmosphere decoupling limits accumulation at summit, greenland |
publisher |
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
https://oskar-bordeaux.fr/handle/20.500.12278/34101 https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1501704 |
geographic |
Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Greenland |
genre |
Greenland Ice Sheet |
genre_facet |
Greenland Ice Sheet |
op_relation |
2375-2548 https://oskar-bordeaux.fr/handle/20.500.12278/34101 doi:10.1126/sciadv.1501704 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1501704 |
container_title |
Science Advances |
container_volume |
2 |
container_issue |
4 |
container_start_page |
e1501704 |
_version_ |
1766014964649164800 |