Discrepancies between observations and climate models of large-scale wind-driven Greenland melt influence sea-level rise projections

Topal, D.; Ding, Q.; Ballinger, T.; Hanna, E.; Fettweis, Xavier; Li, Z.; Pieczka, I.

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-34414-2

Article (Scientific journals)

Discrepancies between observations and climate models of large-scale wind-driven Greenland melt influence sea-level rise projections

Topal, D.; Ding, Q.; Ballinger, T. et al.

2022 • In Nature Communications

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https://hdl.handle.net/2268/296505

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10.1038/s41467-022-34414-2

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36376292

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Abstract :

[en] While climate models project that Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) melt will continue to accelerate with climate change, models exhibit limitations in capturing observed connections between GrIS melt and changes in high-latitude atmospheric circulation. Here we impose observed Arctic winds in a fully-coupled climate model with fixed anthropogenic forcing to quantify the influence of the rotational component of large-scale atmospheric circulation variability over the Arctic on the temperature field and the surface mass/energy balances through adiabatic processes. We show that recent changes involving mid-to-upper-tropospheric anticyclonic wind anomalies – linked with tropical forcing – explain half of the observed Greenland surface warming and ice loss acceleration since 1990, suggesting a pathway for large-scale winds to potentially enhance sea-level rise by ~0.2 mm/year per decade. We further reveal fingerprints of this observed teleconnection in paleo-reanalyses spanning the past 400 years, which heightens concern about model limitations to capture wind-driven adiabatic processes associated with GrIS melt.

Research center :

SPHERES - ULiège

Disciplines :

Earth sciences & physical geography

Author, co-author :

Topal, D.

Ding, Q.

Ballinger, T.

Hanna, E.

Fettweis, Xavier ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de géographie > Climatologie et Topoclimatologie

Li, Z.

Pieczka, I.

Language :

English

Title :

Discrepancies between observations and climate models of large-scale wind-driven Greenland melt influence sea-level rise projections

Publication date :

14 November 2022

Journal title :

Nature Communications

eISSN :

2041-1723

Publisher :

Nature Publishing Group, London, United Kingdom

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Tags :

CÉCI : Consortium des Équipements de Calcul Intensif
Tier-1 supercomputer

Additional URL :

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-34414-2

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since 16 November 2022

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