[en] Greenland surface mass balance (SMB) is undergoing dramatic change due to the amplified Arctic warming, with more frequent record-breaking melt events. To comprehensively understand the behaviour of the Greenland ice sheet, we develop a suite of indices to examine the spatiotemporal variations of extreme events in SMB over Greenland during 1958–2019 based on the RACMO2.3p2 model outputs. We illustrate that the climatological distributions of extreme ablation-dominated events (i.e., extremes with SMB < 0) share large similarity with the mean SMB in terms of intensity and frequency, showing a coastal-to-inland decreasing pattern. This pattern holds for the intensity of the extreme accumulation-dominated events (i.e., extremes with SMB > 0), but not for the frequency which increases from the coastal to inland Greenland. Regarding the temporal evolution, the intensity and frequency of extreme ablation-dominated events show a decreasing trend over Greenland during 1958–1978, whereas the trend increases afterwards, especially during the last two decades (2001–2019). However, these trends fluctuate regionally across the GrIS both in terms of magnitude and sign, with the most pronounced variations occurring in southwest Greenland. In contrast, extreme accumulation-dominated events show, on average, a long-term increasing trend from 1958 to 2019 in terms of intensity and frequency. However, obvious spatial fluctuations exist across the GrIS during 1958–2019, especially between the southwest and northeast Greenland where an opposite trend is observed. Additionally, the variations of SMB extremes in boreal summer are linked with the changes in regional temperature and precipitation and the associated atmospheric circulations, and the dominating factor varies with different extreme indices and time intervals. Our results may advance our understanding on SMB variability over Greenland and contribute to the design of future Greenland observational networks.
Disciplines :
Space science, astronomy & astrophysics
Author, co-author :
Wei, Ting ; State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing, China
Noël, Brice ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de géographie > Climatologie et Topoclimatologie ; Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research (IMAU), Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands
Ding, Minghu; State Key Laboratory of Severe Weather, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, Beijing, China
Yan, Qing; Nansen-Zhu International Research Centre, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China ; Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster/Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, China
Language :
English
Title :
Spatiotemporal variations of extreme events in surface mass balance over Greenland during 1958–2019
NSCF - National Natural Science Foundation of China
Funding text :
National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant/Award Number: 41975120; NWO VENI, Grant/Award Number: VI.Veni.192.019; Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Grant/Award Number: XDA2010030807 Funding informationThis study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41975120) and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA2010030807). Brice Noël was funded by the NWO VENI grant VI.Veni.192.019.
AMAP. (2021) Arctic Climate Change Update 2021: Key Trends and Impacts. Summary for Policy-makers. Tromsø: Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP), 16 pp.
Box, J.E., Fettweis, X., Stroeve, J.C., Tedesco, M., Hall, D.K. and Steffen, K. (2012) Greenland ice sheet albedo feedback: thermodynamics and atmospheric drivers. Cryosphere, 6, 821–839.
Cohen, J., Screen, J., Furtado, J.C., Barlow, M., Whittleston, D., Coumou, D., Francis, J., Dethloff, K, Entekhabi, D., Overland, J. and Jones, J. (2014) Recent Arctic amplification and extreme mid-latitude weather. Nature Geoscience, 7, 627–637.
Edwards, T.L., Fettweis, X., Gagliardini, O., Gillet-Chaulet, F., Goelzer, H., Gregory, J.M., Hoffman, M., Huybrechts, P., Payne, A.J., Perego, M., Price, S., Quiquet, A. and Ritz, C. (2014) Effect of uncertainty in surface mass balance–elevation feedback on projections of the future sea level contribution of the Greenland ice sheet. Cryosphere, 8, 195–208.
Ettema, J., van den Broeke, M.R., van Meijgaard, E., van de Berg, W.J., Bamber, J.L., Box, J.E. and Bales, R.C. (2009) Higher surface mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet revealed by high resolution climate modeling. Geophysical Research Letters, 36, L12501.
Fettweis, X., Hanna, E., Lang, C., Belleflamme, A., Erpicum, M. and Gallée, H. (2013) Brief communication “Important role of the mid-tropospheric atmospheric circulation in the recent surface melt increase over the Greenland ice sheet”. Cryosphere, 7, 241–248.
Fettweis, X., Hofer, S., Krebs-Kanzow, U., Amory, C., Aoki, T., Berends, C.J., Born, A., Box, J.E., Delhasse, A., Fujita, K., Gierz, P., Goelzer, H., Hanna, E., Hashimoto, A., Huybrechts, P., Kapsch, M.-L., King, M.D., Kittel, C., Lang, C., Langen, P.L., Lenaerts, J.T.M., Liston, G.E., Lohmann, G., Mernild, S.H., Mikolajewicz, U., Modali, K., Mottram, R.H., Niwano, M., Noël, B., Ryan, J.C., Smith, A., Streffing, J., Tedesco, M., van de Berg, W.J., van den Broeke, M., van de Wal, R.S.W., van Kampenhout, L., Wilton, D., Wouters, B., Ziemen, F. and Zolles, T. (2020) GrSMBMIP: intercomparison of the modelled 1980–2012 surface mass balance over the Greenland ice sheet. Cryosphere, 14, 3935–3958.
Frederikse, T., Landerer, F., Caron, L., Adhikari, S., Parkes, D., Humphrey, V.W., Dangendorf, S., Hogarth, P., Zanna, L., Cheng, L. and Wu, Y.H. (2020) The causes of sea-level rise since 1900. Nature, 584, 393–397.
Golledge, N.R., Keller, E.D., Gomez, N., Naughten, K.A., Bernales, J., Trusel, L.D. and Edwards, T.L. (2019) Global environmental consequences of twenty-first-century ice-sheet melt. Nature, 566(7742), 65–72.
Graham, R.M., Cohen, L., Petty, A.A., Boisvert, L.N., Rinke, A., Hudson, S.R., Nicolaus, M. and Granskog, M.A. (2017) Increasing frequency and duration of Arctic winter warming events. Geophysical Research Letters, 44, 6974–6983.
Hanna, E., Fettweis, X., Mernild, S.H., Cappelen, J., Ribergaard, M.H., Shuman, C.A., Steffen, K., Wood, L. and Mote, T.L. (2014) Atmospheric and oceanic climate forcing of the exceptional Greenland ice sheet surface melt in summer 2012. International Journal of Climatology, 34, 1022–1037.
Hanna, E., John Cappelen, J., Fettweis, X., Mernild, S.H., Mote, T.L., Mottram, R., Steffen, K., Ballinger,T.J. and Hall, R. J. (2021) Greenland surface air temperature changes from 1981 to 2019 and implications for ice-sheet melt and mass-balance change. International Journal of Climatology, 41(Suppl.1), E1336–E1352.
Huai, B.J., van den Broeke, M.R., Reijmer, C.H., and Cappellen, J. (2021) Quantifying rainfall in Greenland: a combined observational and modeling approach. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 60, 1171–1188. https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-20-0284.1.
Liu, Y., Hallberg, R., Sergienko, O., Samuels, B.L., Harrison, M. and Oppenheimer, M. (2018) Climate response to the meltwater runoff from Greenland ice sheet: evolving sensitivity to discharging locations. Climate Dynamics, 51(5), 1733–1751.
McLeod, J.T. and Mote, T.L. (2015) Assessing the role of precursor cyclones on the formation of extreme Greenland blocking episodes and their impact on summer melting across the Greenland ice sheet. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 120, 12357–12377.
Mouginot, J., Rignot, E., Bjørk, A.A., van den Broeke, M., Millan, R., Morlighem, M., Noël, B., Scheuchl, B. and Wood, M. (2019) Forty-six years of Greenland ice sheet mass balance from 1972 to 2018. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116(19), 9239–9244.
Nghiem, S.V., Hall, D.K., Mote, T.L., Tedesco, M., Albert, M.R., Keegan, K., Shuman, C.A., DiGirolamo, N.E. and Neumann, G. (2012) The extreme melt across the Greenland ice sheet in 2012. Geophysical Research Letters, 39, L20502.
Niwano, M., Box, J.E., Wehrlé, A., Vandecrux, B., Colgan, W.T., and Cappelen, J. (2021) Rainfall on the Greenland ice sheet: present-day climatology from a high-resolution non-hydrostatic polar regional climate model. Geophysical Research Letters, 48, e2021GL092942.
Noël, B., van de Berg, W.J., van Wessem, J.M., van Meijgaard, E., van As, D., Lenaerts, J.T.M., Lhermitte, S., Kuipers, M.P., Smeets, C.J.P.P., van Ulft, L.H., van de RSW, W. and van den Broeke, M.R. (2018) Modelling the climate and surface mass balance of polar ice sheets using RACMO2—part 1: Greenland (1958–2016). Cryosphere, 12, 811–831.
Noël, B., van de Berg, W.J., Lhermitte, S., and vanden Broeke, M.R. (2019) Rapid ablation zone expansion amplifies north Greenland mass loss. Science Advances, 5(9), eaaw0123.
Pfahl, S. and Wernli, H. (2012) Quantifying the relevance of cyclones for precipitation extremes. Journal of Climate, 25, 6770–6780.
Ryan, J.C., Smith, L.C., Van As, D., Cooley, S.W., Cooper, M.G., Pitcher, L.H., and Hubbard, A. (2019) Greenland ice sheet surface melt amplified by snowline migration and bare ice exposure. Science Advances, 5(3), eaav3738.
Schaller, N., Sillmann, J., Anstey, J., Fischer, E.M., Grams, C.M., and Russo, S. (2018) Influence of blocking on northern European and Western Russian heatwaves in large climate model ensembles. Environmental Research Letters, 13(5), 054015.
Serreze, M. and Barry, R. (2011) Processes and impacts of Arctic Amplification. Global and Planetary Change, 77(1–2), 85–96.
Slater, T., Shepherd, A., McMillan, M., Leeson, A., Gilbert, L., Muir, A., Munneke, P., Noel, B., Fettweis, X., van den Broeke, M., and Briggs, K. (2021). Increased variability in Greenland Ice Sheet runoff from satellite observations. Nature Communications 12, 6069.
Tedesco, M. and Fettweis, X. (2020) Unprecedented atmospheric conditions (1948–2019) drive the 2019 exceptional melting season over the Greenland ice sheet. Cryosphere, 14, 1209–1223.
The IMBIE Team. (2020) Mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet from 1992 to 2018. Nature, 579, 233–239.
Thompson, D.W.J. and Wallace, J.M. (1998) The Arctic Oscillation signature in the wintertime geopotential height and temperature fields. Geophysical Research Letters, 25, 1297–1300.
Van Dalum, C.T., van de Berg, W.J. and van den Broeke, M.R. (2021) Impact of updated radiative transfer scheme in snow and ice in RACMO2.3p3 on the surface mass and energy budget of the Greenland ice sheet. Cryopshere, 15, 1823–1844.
Van den Broeke, M.R., Bamber, J., Ettema, J., Rignot, E., Schrama, E., van de Berg, W.J., van Meijgaard, E., Velicogna, I., and Wouters, B. (2009) Partitioning recent Greenland mass loss. Science, 326, 984–986.
Van den Broeke, M.R., Box, J., Fettweis, X., Hanna, E., Noël, B., Tedesco, M., van As, D., Jan van de Berg, W., and van Kampenhout, L. (2017) Greenland ice sheet surface mass loss: recent developments in observation and modeling. Current Climate Change Reports, 3, 345–356.
van Dalum, C. T., van de Berg, W. J., and van den Broeke, M. R. (2021). Impact of updated radiative transfer scheme in snow and ice in RACMO2.3p3 on the surface mass and energy budget of the Greenland ice sheet. The Cryosphere, 15, 1823–1844, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-1823-2021.
