Eemian Greenland SMB strongly sensitive to model choice
Understanding the behavior of the Greenland ice sheet in a warmer climate, and particularly its surface mass balance (SMB), is important for assessing Greenland's potential contribution to future sea level rise. The Eemian interglacial period, the most recent warmer-than-present period in Earth...
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fttriple:oai:gotriple.eu:oai:doaj.org/article:1135fe06fca7436e80d8217e8f07c34e 2023-05-15T16:26:55+02:00 Eemian Greenland SMB strongly sensitive to model choice A. Plach K. H. Nisancioglu S. Le clec'h A. Born P. M. Langebroek C. Guo M. Imhof T. F. Stocker 2018-10-01 https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-14-1463-2018 https://www.clim-past.net/14/1463/2018/cp-14-1463-2018.pdf https://doaj.org/article/1135fe06fca7436e80d8217e8f07c34e en eng Copernicus Publications doi:10.5194/cp-14-1463-2018 1814-9324 1814-9332 https://www.clim-past.net/14/1463/2018/cp-14-1463-2018.pdf https://doaj.org/article/1135fe06fca7436e80d8217e8f07c34e undefined Climate of the Past, Vol 14, Pp 1463-1485 (2018) envir geo Journal Article https://vocabularies.coar-repositories.org/resource_types/c_6501/ 2018 fttriple https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-14-1463-2018 2023-01-22T17:49:51Z Understanding the behavior of the Greenland ice sheet in a warmer climate, and particularly its surface mass balance (SMB), is important for assessing Greenland's potential contribution to future sea level rise. The Eemian interglacial period, the most recent warmer-than-present period in Earth's history approximately 125 000 years ago, provides an analogue for a warm summer climate over Greenland. The Eemian is characterized by a positive Northern Hemisphere summer insolation anomaly, which complicates Eemian SMB calculations based on positive degree day estimates. In this study, we use Eemian global and regional climate simulations in combination with three types of SMB models – a simple positive degree day, an intermediate complexity, and a full surface energy balance model – to evaluate the importance of regional climate and model complexity for estimates of Greenland's SMB. We find that all SMB models perform well under the relatively cool pre-industrial and late Eemian. For the relatively warm early Eemian, the differences between SMB models are large, which is associated with whether insolation is included in the respective models. For all simulated time slices, there is a systematic difference between globally and regionally forced SMB models, due to the different representation of the regional climate over Greenland. We conclude that both the resolution of the simulated climate as well as the method used to estimate the SMB are important for an accurate simulation of Greenland's SMB. Whether model resolution or the SMB method is most important depends on the climate state and in particular the prevailing insolation pattern. We suggest that future Eemian climate model intercomparison studies should include SMB estimates and a scheme to capture SMB uncertainties. Article in Journal/Newspaper Greenland Ice Sheet Unknown Greenland Climate of the Past 14 10 1463 1485 |
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envir geo A. Plach K. H. Nisancioglu S. Le clec'h A. Born P. M. Langebroek C. Guo M. Imhof T. F. Stocker Eemian Greenland SMB strongly sensitive to model choice |
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envir geo |
description |
Understanding the behavior of the Greenland ice sheet in a warmer climate, and particularly its surface mass balance (SMB), is important for assessing Greenland's potential contribution to future sea level rise. The Eemian interglacial period, the most recent warmer-than-present period in Earth's history approximately 125 000 years ago, provides an analogue for a warm summer climate over Greenland. The Eemian is characterized by a positive Northern Hemisphere summer insolation anomaly, which complicates Eemian SMB calculations based on positive degree day estimates. In this study, we use Eemian global and regional climate simulations in combination with three types of SMB models – a simple positive degree day, an intermediate complexity, and a full surface energy balance model – to evaluate the importance of regional climate and model complexity for estimates of Greenland's SMB. We find that all SMB models perform well under the relatively cool pre-industrial and late Eemian. For the relatively warm early Eemian, the differences between SMB models are large, which is associated with whether insolation is included in the respective models. For all simulated time slices, there is a systematic difference between globally and regionally forced SMB models, due to the different representation of the regional climate over Greenland. We conclude that both the resolution of the simulated climate as well as the method used to estimate the SMB are important for an accurate simulation of Greenland's SMB. Whether model resolution or the SMB method is most important depends on the climate state and in particular the prevailing insolation pattern. We suggest that future Eemian climate model intercomparison studies should include SMB estimates and a scheme to capture SMB uncertainties. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
A. Plach K. H. Nisancioglu S. Le clec'h A. Born P. M. Langebroek C. Guo M. Imhof T. F. Stocker |
author_facet |
A. Plach K. H. Nisancioglu S. Le clec'h A. Born P. M. Langebroek C. Guo M. Imhof T. F. Stocker |
author_sort |
A. Plach |
title |
Eemian Greenland SMB strongly sensitive to model choice |
title_short |
Eemian Greenland SMB strongly sensitive to model choice |
title_full |
Eemian Greenland SMB strongly sensitive to model choice |
title_fullStr |
Eemian Greenland SMB strongly sensitive to model choice |
title_full_unstemmed |
Eemian Greenland SMB strongly sensitive to model choice |
title_sort |
eemian greenland smb strongly sensitive to model choice |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-14-1463-2018 https://www.clim-past.net/14/1463/2018/cp-14-1463-2018.pdf https://doaj.org/article/1135fe06fca7436e80d8217e8f07c34e |
geographic |
Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Greenland |
genre |
Greenland Ice Sheet |
genre_facet |
Greenland Ice Sheet |
op_source |
Climate of the Past, Vol 14, Pp 1463-1485 (2018) |
op_relation |
doi:10.5194/cp-14-1463-2018 1814-9324 1814-9332 https://www.clim-past.net/14/1463/2018/cp-14-1463-2018.pdf https://doaj.org/article/1135fe06fca7436e80d8217e8f07c34e |
op_rights |
undefined |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-14-1463-2018 |
container_title |
Climate of the Past |
container_volume |
14 |
container_issue |
10 |
container_start_page |
1463 |
op_container_end_page |
1485 |
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