Recent climate of southern Greenland

• Published in: Weather
• Main Authors: Hanna, Edward, Cappelen, John
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Wiley for Royal Meteorological Society 2002
• Subjects: F860 Climatology; Greenland; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/id/eprint/26173/; https://doi.org/10.1256/00431650260283497

The polar regions are among the most interesting regarding the ongoing debate on global climate change because, due to several key climatic feedbacks, they are potentially extremely climatically sensitive. The best known is the ice± albedo feedback by which an initial perturbation (slight warming) melts some ice; this new, more extensive, darker, melt-water area absorbs more incoming sunlight, which accelerates the warming and melting of surrounding ice. Therefore, it is crucial to improve our understanding of current conditions and past history of the major ice sheets and sea-ice, and to model how they are likely to behave in future (e.g. in response to man-made global warming). This requires not only glaciological observations but also meteorological ones. Unfortunately, polar areas are noted for their dearth of observations.